New joinee here, I was reading another post here describing about Compensation ratio, how is it calculated? What the metrics used to evaluate employee value?
Even experienced guys in my team are not sure how it is done after the removal of bell curve.
May not be the right site, but will help to decide if I should stay or leave?
If you need someone else to tell you if you know what you are doing you are already out of touch.
That is just naive.
Oh great, another Cisco person who can't read. From the rest of my paragraph:
As far as where you rank relative to your peers, that's determined politically well above your manager and if at least one of you and your manager aren't in the in group you aren't going anywhere except possibly out the door, often with your team and manager who will be as surprised as you.
It's not a matter of two equal people where only one is getting the managers slippers. It's people close to their own management making bad decisions that cost the company tens of millions of dollars a pop while doing nothing to offset that during their career and getting promotions while the fixers pulled in for weeks to turn around programs which floundered for years get crapped on for embarrassing the truly incompetent in both engineering and management.
I've talked with a lot of managers who have had great people under them tossed by people above them and were completely blindsided, and in some of those cases the manager was also tossed without any indication they were on the chopping block. Competent management all the way up the chain would have intervened far earlier than the one year mark to either get people up to snuff or move them along before wasting a year of loaded labor plus all the work required to fix the damage caused by the problem children but the problem children are now in control. By definition this means they continue to lay off the wrong people and it's not going to get better.
tl;dr: your manager is statistically likely to be less aware of what's going on politically and technically than you and it's up to you to be aware of your own value and that you can be tossed at any time.
What follows: continue growing your skills on your own time and be ready to jump either by force or choice to a better opportunity.
From what I'm reading it sounds like you don't want to engage with your manager and have a conversation about performance.
"If you need someone else to tell you if you know what you are doing you are already out of touch".
That is just naive. Your manager will have his or her view. You need to discuss and engage with him or her. Take 2 people. One who gets on with it and keeps his head down and does a good job. The other who keeps his head down, does a good job but discusses with his boss what the bosses expectations are, what peers are doing, talks about his / her achievements and generally engages. The second one is going to go further. Its just common sense.
Now you might argue that is politics and favoritism etc. etc. To me its just managing your career. Its not waiting for stuff to happen. Its making stuff happen.
Its a fact that talent reviews happen. If you don't shine a light on your achievements then you get forgotten about. Its corporate life.
Your manager should be telling you but if not you should ask some obvious questions. 'Hey boss how am I doing.. How am I compared to my peers.. How am I rated???'.
If you need someone else to tell you if you know what you are doing you are already out of touch. As far as where you rank relative to your peers, that's determined politically well above your manager and if at least one of you and your manager aren't in the in group you aren't going anywhere except possibly out the door, often with your team and manager who will be as surprised as you.
As for the process, at the beginning of the year we used to write down all the programs we were going to work on and at the end of the year document the year of bug scrubs for other teams we got pulled into to explain why we didn't do any actual program work which made the process a complete waste of time. It took a decade to figure this out which is why they dropped it in favor of the explicit backroom approach. CSCzz99999 here we come!
You are funny. When you have reviews with your boss do you not discuss how to develop your career? Do you not ask about how you are viewed and how talent reviews occur? Do you take ownership or do you let your manager just talk at you. Your manager should be telling you but if not you should ask some obvious questions. 'Hey boss how am I doing.. How am I compared to my peers.. How am I rated???'. Do you just sit quietly in reviews being talked at?
@1xvg OP here. It may not be secret or rocket science, but it is not spoken about in meetings. How can I know something if I am not aware that it exists in first place. You sound a like manager who can't handle conversations like this. I feel sorry for those who work with you.
Have you actually asked your manager? Stop talking cr@p and just ask rather than whinge. If your manager refuses then ask HR.
It's not rocket science. It's not secret....drama queen!
5npl
"drama queen"....really?!? I suspect you are a manager. The poster had a valid question.....and most managers WILL NOT talk about 9 block....because it is a rating system, and supposedly Cisco has no rating system and doesn't give employees feedback on their performance. Talking about 9 block and communicating your placement goes against the system....thus it is kept quiet. Maybe in the mgmt. ranks it is talked about a lot, but not below a grade 12 or 13.
Original poster....9 block is pretty common evaluation system. You can google it. The point is, Cisco should review the results with every employee. That way they can improve (if needed).
4qdj
Drama queen. Just ask your manager. It's not secret. If he refuses to tell you just ask HR. He or she might not want to tell you because it might be a difficult conversation. It's not secret.
Like another person mentioned......employee evaluations are done behind close doors, and with no paper trail, via the 9-block method. As an employee, you will never know your 9-block rating. It would be interesting if someone provided details about the 9-block process.
To add to what @2jnx said, the salary range is also tied to geography. Each location is assigned to a salary plan. That salary plan defines the min and max for each grade level. So the midpoint in San Jose is higher than the midpoint in Austin or RDU.
As far as the original question on how performance is measured, it is effectively now based on the whim of your management chain with anyone higher in the chain being able to solicit or ignore the input of anyone below them. The "how many beers you have with your manager" really is not off the mark. Nothing is formalized now.
Each pay grade has a minimum, mid-point and maximum. For example a grade 8 might be a minimum of $95,000, mid-point of $105,000 and maximum of $115,000. A Grade 10 would overlap that range a bit, like $106,000 minimum, $120,000 mid-point and $134,000 maximum.
Your C/R ('Compa Ratio') is simply your salary divided by the mid-point. So a grade 8 making $105,000 would have a C/R of 1.0
The sheer amount of money wasted in Operations & IT is astounding. Absolutely zero accountability or ethics, merely manipulate business value numbers.
It never meant anything. Well connected fools who cost the company tens of millions have been promoted while capable people under weak managers were let go.
Even for better companies, if your manager wasn't better than you at what you do you'll never get an objective evaluation.
@gmc I wish they had a like button here
Very creative
One other thing.....last August, our group was not required to LR anyone. But we used it as an excuse to easily get rid of someone the mgr didn't like, among the LR tidal wave sweeping through. Then we began interviewing for that same position next quarter.
Once you have your CR rating and are concerned it places you at risk regardless of what you think of your performance, you should ask for an immediate pay cut.
Actually you can ask your manager what 9 block you are in. It's not secret but maybe some manager's don't want difficult conversations.
The metrics are still there just not public.
For salary: CR is where you stand with regard to the average (or median point, I'm not sure which Cisco uses) salary paid for your grade. CR 1 your pay is above average. Cisco seems to like to keep people in the 0.8-1.2 range or thereabouts. You can ask to be told your CR, either via your manager or raising an HRC case. A previous employer used industry average pay rates instead.
Received wisdom here is that a CR > 1.2 makes you a prime target for LR. It might be a factor but I've seen people upgraded to make their CR more neutral.
Performance: this has gone underground since The People Deal and Sync-ups came in. Behind the scenes they still use the 9-block to evaluate performance. You'll never be told when you are a top performer but it will be used against you if performance is not as good as it could be. In sales, simply hitting your target does not necessarily make you a good performer.
Welcome to the Cisco Cattle-Drive and LR-Rodeo Roundup.
The system runs so well there is no need for performance metrics. Everyone is happy and everything works perfectly.
At around your tenth year of grazing as a Cisco cattle, you'll be simply rounded up and sent over LR-rainbow-bridge, cast out with the others of similar tenure, to then serve as financial fertilizer for failed aquisitions and executive EOY bonuses.
The only metric is the number of beers you drink with your manager, and how he/she appreciates you.
There are no annual goals, hence no measurable achievements present. So if your manager suddenly sets you as an undeprformer, well ... You have nothing to argue with...