The top 10

A short while back some krannert guy decided that in order to create a better work enviroment and have a team of high performers we needed to rank our employees.  While this strategy has worked for many years successfully at many companies success is entirely dependant on implementation.  Guess what itap does poorly?  Give up?  IMPLEMENTATION!  Yet again we have implemented something, sucked at it and created more heartache than good. 

First our super duper non-elected VP (recenlty changed to exectutive director) decided that the bottom 10% was not enough we need to list our bottom 20% or something stupid like that.  But the real problem lies in the top 10 see we have about 100 people working here in our division meaning that 10 people get to be TOP.  This has been such a demotivator that I would imangine that productivity has gone down since the implementation of this system.  The general feeling is that most of the people on the list are just ass kissers, yeah you heard me I went there.  Sure there are some on there that truely deserve it.  But the down fall is that the top 10 get special “rewards”, get to be on special committies, and go to special meetings.  Hey doesn’t having your best performers out of the office mean that like 2x the amount of work is not getting done?  HAHHAHH! Only if they were truly preformers and not ass kissers.  I guess that my biggest beef is that there are a FAIR chunk of people in that middle 80% that care more, do more and are better qualified and suited for their job.  This group of people are being discriminated against, treated like below average citizens and get lower % of raises. 

 So how did we go wrong?  IMO it started with not clearly defining what the expectations and criteria are for being a top performer.  But let me give you the list

• No plan to help the bottom x% move up, no training, no mentoring NOTHING!
• No clear expectations
• No reprocussion for doing bad when you are a top performer – I mean our top 10 yelled at the boss in a meeting, was deeming and disrespectful.  She excused it with “everyone has a bad day”.  (this has happened a lot lately)
• Improper treating of the work horse group – the 80% I mean if all the 80% people left you’d be up shit creek
• It is a seeekrit list, but we all “know”
• Being discriminated against be cause I am not the bosses “friend” is one thing doing it publicly is another
• No plan as to what this means, what we are going to do with this or why it is important
• Apparently if you are top 10 then the big guy wants you to stay working here so they are trying really hard to retain them, uh … what about those actually doing the work?

Ok I guess it is time to end my lunch time rant.