After working at intel for 11 yrs, I've found that grade levels are just a way to push out older employees. People often get "promoted", with no actual change in job scope, and then later penalized when they can't meet the expectations of the new grade level. There are some eng the same grade as their manager, so they're effectively ranked against their own boss when the AMs look at focal for the area. Also, the pay ranges overlap so much that it's possible for some people at a higher grade level to earn less than some of the people at the lower grade level, while being held to much higher expectations. Then the people at the higher grade levels can get low stock and be at risk of layoffs.
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This is the key. Your career is almost entirely in the hands of your manager. Really not much that you can do if he decides to get rid of you for whatever good or bad reason. GPTW.
"I had a different manager after promo. The one that promoted me left the group. The new one immediately started targeting me. Yes, I believe I wasn't part of the right club anymore."
@QJ9ARWT-1sgc: Agree with what you say. These stupid grade levels made sense in the olden days when people stayed in one company to retirement. Now all these nonsense HR sh_t called performance reviews, grad levels, pay scales are designed to eliminate people when they get old, and keep management happy. Utter junk is what the American tech industry has become.
Once you come to realize that you are 1 of 100,000 pawns ready to be sacrificed for any strategic plan or just a bad move, you'll finally realize where you stand.
There ARE plenty of better places to work, you just have to decide if you're going to go find one of them. If you say you can't leave for economic reasons, then you need to get yourself into a position where you can have options in the near future.
Look at any chess board at the end of the game and see how many pawns are left, and plan accordingly.
@1sgc yep we all produce just enough and not one bit more.
Really? It took 11 years to figure that out? As much as I love to sh*t on Intel (deservedly so...) -- These kinds of grading systems are throughout the tech industry. They are designed to keep you motivated just enough to produce... but demotivated enough so that you do not forget they have a proverbial gun to you and your family's heads. The truth is ... you are a slave Neo --
@1trj You are confusing „the management“ with „the managers“ (i.e. the front line managers who have to execute the Focal system). Learn the difference.
The management is to blame for creating the Focal system. The front line managers are to blame for abusing it.
i am so glad i left in august...life is way too short for that sh-- hole of an employer -- the sad sacks of sh-- that claim to have a career just kiss a-- all day long and brag about how they influence others with all their knowledge all the same time they are so damn lazy to even begin to think to do 1 ounce of wrok
@tkr- of course they're blaming the management and how they misuse this system. The system was set up and is run by people.
Anyone have any ideas on how to fight It? I've always wondered why engineers don't unionize?
The system is designed so that the median length of service for. Blue Badge population is right around 10years...the Focal system is the sausage machine that regulates..
Funny how you guys keep blaming the Focal system when you should be blaming the managers who are abusing/misusing it.
Don't get promoted until you've milked all the salary increases you could from the grade. Going up fast is just banging your head on the ceiling. Play with the darn system since you have to.
I had a different manager after promo. The one that promoted me left the group. The new one immediately started targeting me. Yes, I believe I wasn't part of the right club anymore.
@bpv- unfortunately, you didn't kiss the correct butt. Intel is ran by bureaucrats and you are either part of the club or not. When you are not, you are targeted.
@QJ9ARWT-bpv: did you have the same manager for the promotion and after that?
@QJ9ARWT-myh: made sense.
I'm not a lazy employee who doesn't want to advance, I was set up for failure. I was promoted to G8 while I was a shift GL and then immediately gone after 1 year later because I "ranked last" when compared to module team leaders in my area. I had no degradation in performance, had extra projects and ownership outside the shift GL role, etc but it wasn't enough. I now have a SL5 on my record, when I could have stayed a G7 for probably 5 more years before maxing out, and waited for a real promo to a position where I could actually have ranked competitively.
First of all, I don‘t see a reason why people shouldn‘t be ranked at the same level or even higher than their boss. I was the manager of a very highly skilled guy with 20+ years of experience in the field, and he was ranked one grade above me and earned more than me. Where is the problem with that? The idea that managers should always be the highest-ranked people in any given team is an 80‘s/90‘s kind of attitude where the idea was that managers should be the highest-skilled people on the team with the ability to micromanage their team members’ every move.
And there is nothing in the Focal process that puts any employee at any kind of disadvantage just because they have the same grade as their manager. Nothing whatsoever.
And yes, the pay ranges overlap, and it is possible for higher-graded employees to earn less than lower-graded ones. If that is the case though, the manager will at some point get a special budget to push the higher-graded employee closer to the midpoint of the pay range. Also, a promotion usually entails a 10-15% raise. So even if you don‘t go deep into the grade‘s pay range immediately, you will benefit from the promotion, no matter what.
As far as expectations go, you usually get promoted into the grade where you are already fulfilling the expectations. Hence the „no change in job scope“. If someone proves for a year that they can do what I expect from, say, a grade 7, then they can go to grade 7. No need to change their job scope if they have already had the job scope of a grade 7. I have not seen a case where an employee was promoted and then told three years later that they are not fulfilling the expectations for that grade. Unless the performance actually degraded, that should not happen. I am not saying that managers couldn‘t abuse the system in such a way - it is certainly open to abuse - but it would be a rather long con to play. There are far more critical areas of potential abuse in the Focal system that I would worry about.
To me, it sounds like OP got a bunch of half-baked information about how Focal works, and as usual, conspiracy theories are built on a lack of knowledge. OP, if you don‘t want to get promoted, nobody can force you. In fact, your manager will be happy to use the very limited promo budget on more ambitious team members. But then don‘t complain if your salary increases only by an average of 1-3% per year, because without promotions, that‘s all you get.
On the flipside, if you stay 5+ years in the same job grade it's held against you as well.