As if it doesn't get any Keystone Cops better, the new Impact Award program is beyond insulting. Just read the over 230 comments (so far) posted on MyGE. A truly clear picture of where employee morale is at (i.e. letter writing campaign to Jamie Miller).
16 replies (most recent on top)
The announcement of the change to the Awards system and the employee responses has been the most entertaining of any this year! If the tool was available, I would submit the HR author for a few human contact points for making a real impact on employee morale.
Impact as in the ultimate fate of GE's stock price as it crashes.
Impact as in thank you sir can I have another or please hit me again?
Yeah, I stopped working past 5 and no longer log in on weekends or evenings. I have a new manager who walks past me everyday and never says "hi", let alone understands what I do. I set up meetings to review my work, and he cancels them at the last minute. I take my lunch break now and use the time to send out resumes and do phone interviews.
How's that for an impact?
The atmosphere in GE is getting more poisonous by the day. This is better than going to the movies.
Regretfully, now I think of Nazzi's slogan "Arbeit macht frei" (meaning "work sets you free") appearing on the entrance of Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
"Human touch", Really? Who the heck dreams up this load of dung to feed GE masses? Is there a position or committee doing this? Perhaps they should be eliminated to save $ and morale. Never have I witnessed anywhere else so much brain wash propaganda and buzzwords to keep the masses in line by re branding manure as something delightful and sacred. The GE cult is strong with this one.
I think that a good way to respond to this system is to only do as much as you can get away with. No more. This is what my friends told me happened to HP when Carly Fiorina reigned the company. HP people used to work overtime and stayed late to finish the tasks, but after she destroyed the company, in a similar way to what we see at GE now, people started to leave early, and after 5pm the place was a ghost town.
"Impact points" is the new rewards system. In the past, it was Above and Beyond.
Above and Beyond = "Hey low-level peon! Thanks for working through the weekend and the birth of your firstborn child to get me that slideshow! Here is an Above and Beyond for $100! Use it on an Amazon gift card or Ruth Chris gift card!"
Impact = "Hey low-level peon! Thanks for skipping your open heart surgery last week so that you could get me thirty versions of the same spreadsheet! Here's 1,000 Impact Points! If you collect 5,000 more, you can redeem them in the GE Impact store for a GE ballpoint pen! Thank you for your continued effort, and I hope you enjoyed this meaningful human touch as much as I did!"
Can someone post a screenshot of those comments here
What are Impact Points?
Haha, I worked with people that gave each other awards every month. They cleaned the house with the old program. Why bother waiting for a raise or overtime when you can just get a fake reward after another.
I wish I was kidding.
Your best bet of survival is to just dance and clap your hands like it is a high school talent show.
Keep eating the flat iron pretending it is filet mignon.
They'll end up with what they want, cheap, unreliable, workers who can't find jobs elsewhere. Then every will crumble, they'll keep asking where all went wrong, all the spreadsheets look like they did it right....
The problem is the Flannery's and Stokes will leave with the pockets full and everyone else will get screwed.
To be honest I think everyone should just do what they get paid for and nothing else. If we get nothing for the extra effort why do it?
The company can’t just give you the facts. They always have to pretend to the little people that they are offering up filet mignon and not a sh!t sandwich. They went through the same act when the instituted the current health plan years ago.
RS is so out of touch with reality, and obviously disconnected from workers and our customers.
He needs to go and be replaced by someone who knows the business.
Man, if you thought laughing in an all hands meeting was bad for morale, just go ahead and swap out cash rewards with a GE version of Marlboro bucks. People are livid, and not just because of Above and Beyond ending - it's more the fact that the company is trying to pass it off as super-great for the employees and not a flimsy cost savings action. And the language about "human touches" is hilarious.
I wonder how many Impact points I'd need to collect before I can trade them in for a sweet Maui vacation with RS?