Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

This is true and here’s why it’s terrible.
1- if you are a high performer you will actively avoid a high performing team and move to one that has low performance to save your rating. Instead of all the top performers working together they split up.
2 - India is not part of the rating. Everyone with Indians on the team knows they are the lowest performers but you can’t rank them. So a US based employee can get a does not meet even if the India based employee is so bad everyone on the team knows it. Morale ki-ler. Imagine having to fix your Indian counterpart’s mistakes knowing they got a meets and you got a does not meet.

"Some of this stuff seems like grounds for a lawsuit. Wells is headed for more trouble."

Unless there is a provable pattern of discrimination in performance based on a variable like age or gender... there's no legal recourse. Good luck finding that proof.

@2tgu You work for a different company-- that's what you now have to do.

@hjp I can 100% confirm this. It happens every time. We are told to submit ratings. Then "calibration" happens. This does not mean we calibrate across our peer teams-- it means we are given direction from management to adjust to meet the % does not meet and % exceeds. It's a damn joke and people who are performing are getting sc--wed. What's disgraceful is this is happening to people who have not received feedback before or after mid-year. Managers have no choice but to give the rating and employees have received no feedback to justify that rating or to work up and approve from. WF is now a very toxic place to work and I do believe they are cleaning house and shoehorning their JP/Citi/etc. crooks--I mean friends--in to do what the honest WF legacy managers no longer can.

This is true. I refused when asked and would resign before I would comply with downgrading anyone on my hard working team.

But managers have goals to build high performing teams. How do I build a high performing team when I’m forced to rate good performers lower than they deserve?

I've never once had a meets review questioned, no matter what justifications I include. The only discussions in calibration are around the ratings that are higher or lower. In my group we spend 90% of the calibration discussion trying to prevent an exceeds from being shot down by higher management. I have been told that my justification is insufficient, but I've never been asked to change the actual text of the justification, just the rating. Not sure how other groups do it, but that's how it works in my group.

Some of this stuff seems like grounds for a lawsuit. Wells is headed for more trouble.

I was laid off at the end of June. Never heard anything negative from my manager. Imagine my surprise/disgust/anger when I saw my review in the system at the end of July with a Needs Improvement rating. I understand they are also doing this so that people who are laid off don't receive bonuses. I wonder if there is going to be some sort of backlash.

Managers are pressured to “find something” or fabricate if they can’t figure out who to downgrade. This approach was pioneered in the 1980s and 1990s and has been thoroughly discredited. Healthy organizations do not resort to such regimens.

Quickest way to turn a great employee into a poor employee is to give them a bad review, especially if it’s totally unexpected.

People starting out will always WANT to do well and succeed.

But an unexpected bad review will turn them into someone who “works to the level of their last review”.

There is a quota and “calibrations” to ensure you meet the quota

qup+1tWsSEoh And ctw+1tWsSEoh tell the truth. But the bell curve is there because too many avg workers have got 4s before and really didn’t deserve it. The bottom end then proved too low so they forced that now. As for me, once I followed a mgr for a midyr rating I thought was wrong but got the order in writing and saved it. Then by the end of the year we did agree. If we didn’t I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do. Three choices for an ethical mgr 1) make the correct call and have the mgr overwrite you 2) got to HR and file a formal complaint 3) tell your employee on the side to file an appeal and then support the appeal.

Isn’t organizational behavior taught anymore? Jack Welch case studies, theory X management? Makes me wonder if management doesn’t have a well rounded skill-set, or they are just greedy.

hjp+1tWsSEoh....Thank you for that. It describes much of what I see happening at work especially the unclear goals. I am an individual contributor and managers will say they can't tell you the goal you need to hit but you are stack ranked against your co-workers. Everything is based on an average of everyone's performance. Being new in my role that is so frustrating.

Not only do we as managers have little final say in rankings we are told to put something in the review to justify a lower rating. We can choose in most cases who gets the poor rating but it is forced. We have started things like, anyone who is on any sort of leave during the year gets a 2, anyone who times their departure poorly (during a review period) gets a 2, anyone displaced during a review period a 1, anyone who gets any poor remarks on a 360 review gets a 2 (even thought we know the reviewer is wrong). I used to keep positive emails and notes on my team now I keep negative so I can justify the forced rankings. We are also told to make goals nebulous and not statistical based. That way we can say you only built 12 widgets and others did 13. No goal to hit or miss just competition with your peers. It su-ks the big one. Remember, your manager is rated the same way.

Managers are rating employees on their notice period needs improvement to meet their quotas. It’s just wrong.

@ctw+1tWsSEoh is correct - what your coworkers are telling you is absolutely correct. It is up to managers to rate their employees as they see fit.......but that's just the first pass. After that, there are calibrations that take place up the chain at each next level of management so the calibration group gets larger and larger. And because at the OC level, there can't be a large deviation from the "guided distribution" percentages provided for ratings, even a large group of incredibly high performers has to have SOMEONE who isn't "quite as high performing" as the others, so the manager is forced to make a decision as who that "someone" will be because they MUST pick someone.

The forced ranking approach has failed in most companies that have instituted it. Including various Fortune 100 companies. The approach is known for effectively destroying previously cohesive and collaborative cultures. It is a performance management tool used by failed, non-inspirational, titular leaders. Its utilization by a company is a clear indicator of its eventual demise as a going concern.

When I had to give ratings it had to be based off of how they were performing versus how my district was performing on average. If their performance was average they got a meets. Below average inconsistently meets. Really low was needs improvement. If I gave anything else then I had to defend it.

If you are not your manager’s favorite expect to get Inconsistent Meets or lower. Rating is based on favoritism.

“Guided distribution” is the gas lighting term they use but it’s forced ranking. So sickening. Just call it what it is

It is called calibration. Managers put in the ratings and then they have to discuss and or defend the ratings across the same peer group rolling up to management. Calibration is gone on for forever , but since Charlie got here, it has taken on a new meaning.

Anyone telling you that there is not bell curve is flat out lying to you. There is and it has to be met.

Let’s not forget we are in New York bank now and all of the New York banks operate the same way. They have a curve and the lowest denominator get cut.