Poddington

Right, I'm a long term member posting under an alias as I don't want any company/personal details out yet so here goes...

Yesterday I had my performance management review (year end) with my boss. (scale of 1-5, 1 god, 2 exceeding some objectives, 3 meets objectives, failing some objectives, 5 fired).
I sit down with him to be told that while he's put me down as a 3, for business reasons I have to go down as a 4 - WTF?!?!
I've not failed any of my objectives over the last year so I don't see how they can do this.
He went on to say that he is fine/happy with my work and I've done fine, there is no worry there, and that his boss and the Director of our group are both aware that I have done nothing wrong and have been working fine, but I still have to be a 4.
Basically I was told that while the business has performed bad they can't have everyone meeting objectives otherwise the business should have performed better, so thus 5 people in my department had to be picked from our line management to receive these grades. In other words dictated to by the business. Despite the fact they made thousands redundant you'd think they would have already got rid of all those getting 4's.
Now this primarily seems to be because they came up with a bonus scheme which looks like it will have to pay and they can't afford it so it seems this is one way out of it. Those marked 4 get 30% less payment than the person sitting next to them. This irritates the **** outta me as a mate and a colleague are no different, I'm supposedky doing fine, yet now he'll get a load more than me.
Our personal objectives also say that if we are heading towards a 4 grade then management should put in place a poor performance plan to try and get you out of that to ultimately end up with a 3 grade. Obviously I've done nothing wrong so this hasn't been done thus they surely can't mark me down?
Now, as I am getting a 4, and this hasn't been done, then my management aren't doing their job properly and thus they should fail their objectives too and get a 4, but hey, guess what, nope they still stay the same.

I'm now tasked to do my objectives for next year - whats the point when your performance has nothing to do with the grade you'll get anyway?

Sitting here just not wanting to bother with anything.

Fecking livid, angry etc etc etc too

Very grateful of any thoughts/advice etc that anyone can give on where I can go from here. Obviously having a 4 hurts long term goals in the company, not that I'd want to stay here after them doing this. CV is being updated of course As I said though, would be grateful of any advice Hopefully will get some CAB/Legal advice too.

Thanks

P.S - Sorry about the long post!

Gordo

Talk to HR for starters, start muttering about constructive dismissal. Are senior people in the business aware that the middle management are covering their *****?

Brendan Hughes

Colleague had something vaguely similar, he refused to approve the report (employee should sign report). It got thrashed out in the end.

Where does it say that your performance should be measured relative to your colleagues? I guess it doesn't. And they've pretty much admitted that they're going to punish the lower people for the management not doing their job.

Constructive dismissal...

Faire D'Income

It sounds ludicrous to me that they can have pre-arranged the gradings on an allocated basis.

Firstly, I'd point this out to your line manager in writing probably via email outlining your postion and the explanation he has given you. Depending on the outcome of this, the next step would a visit to Personnel making sure your boss is aware of this as there's no point in alienating him at this stage by appearing to go behind his back.

If you are still unsatisfied then I'd suggest a consultation with a lawyer who specialises in Employment Law, who will be able to guide you on the best way forward.

Drunken Bungle Whore

I'm an HR / Training type bod so hope this helps.

Any organisation is required by law to have a formal grievance procedure in place for these situations. It sounds like you have a good case to make, but you'll need to take it through the proper channels. If you're in a union then get them involved too. Make sure you have documented evidence to support your claims. Go talk to personnel/ HR - they should be able to provide you with a copy of your grievance procedure.

Also most companies will require you to add your own comments to the bottom of a perfromance review before you sign it and it gets officially filed. You're allowed to write what you want here so, without being bitter, I'd suggest you make your comments there and include any evidence you have to support your claim.

As regards future employement and references, it's unlikely that they'll quote exact grades from performance management reports - more likely to simply state that your attendance was ok and you met your targets, were honest etc.

I don't blame you for feeling bitter - it makes me mad as all this does it make a complete mockery of Performance Management when it should be used a valuable tool to improve staff relationships and ID training needs.

Good luck!

Poddington

Thanks for the replies

I'm still really wound up that I'm supposed to do my objectives for next year, when really whats the point if they have graded you regardless of what you do

I have not signed any forms yet, thats next week, but I'll be holding off until I know whats going on. I've only got it all in preliminary verbal at the moment, so I've emailed my manager asking for written email confirmation of what was said and discussed etc. Then I have a point to start from.

DBW - I'll definately be adding my comments on the form if nothing changes and I'll also be off to see HR too depending on where I go from here.

I appreciate that performance review will not really hinder my progress in other companies, but it will if I stay within this one......

John Catlin

Seen it all before.

Next year out the door !!!!!!!!!!!

Brit_in_Japan

Don't sign to say you accept a 4 rating. Commiserate with your boss when he says they have to find some scapegoats, but tell him you won't be one of them. Unless of course you can use the issue to lever a salary increase (consolidated) to ensure you are not financially disadvantaged

Everyone has their price !

imlach

We had this at our company this year too (Genital Technologies).

Basically, as we lost 80% of our workforce through redundancy, and the company overall wants to see a certain %-age of people in certain performance bands, those that had previously been on high bands (cos they weren't redundant - ie, keep the best) were put on lower bands....

Being on a lower band meant no pay rise this year (most haven't had one for years now). So, in effect, even although you are a great performer, for COMPANY reasons, you're now seen as crap cos all the guff has gone.....

Suffice to say, now redundancies are now being offered again, MANY are volunteering this time...

Time to leave the sinking ship.

PS Our particular dept (the one I work in) has now been obliterated, so as of today, I got given my 'at risk' notice
Ah well, tens & tens of £000's tax free bonus coming my way in 3 months, so can't complain.

Pete The Biker

Poddington

I work for a major multinational and their bonus allocation is just as daft as your company. For each office there is a 'distribution curve' for the number of people who gets each grade........ no matter how well (or badly) the office as a whole has done. So if we all work our socks off, while another comparable office sits around with their thumbs up their ar*es, the staff in each office get the same grade allocation overall. The grades then determine the annual bonus (which in my department is pitiful compared with other functions in the company anyway), and the annual salary increment. So as you can imagine we are all well pissed off.

We are all set personal objectives for the year, but the grade allocation is driven by quotas, so your reward is driven by what others do in comparison with you, rather than whether you do what is required.

The distribution curves are also based on different grades of seniority and gender.........

You wouldn't believe that my company was one of the first in its sector to get Investors In People!

My theory is that Human Remains are so **** scared of someone taking them to a tribunal/court for lack of transparency/unfairness in the bonus allocation, that they felt compelled to come up with a system that is so arbitrary, structured and irrelevant that it's almost beyond challenge!


Pete The Biker

Brit_in_Japan

Pete The Biker, my experience is the same from when I worked at BAe Systems in the early/mid '90's. They only ran the scheme in it's original state (i.e. where pay rises were directly linked to performance management rating) for a couple of years because it was inequitable, inconsistently applied and actively demotivated people. I can't believe that companies 10 years later on are still running these schemes, have they learned nothing from the experience of others ???

Trout

iTrader: (1)

I agree with Pete the Biker.

The majority, if not all Performance Management systems are based on comparitive performance and there will be an underlying distribution curve.

This system will be with you all your life - as it applies to GCSEs, Degrees, work gradings, motor racing....you name it.

The performance bar moves and you have to move with it.

There is no legislation that states that your employer is duty bound to provide you with an 'absolute' performance measure that can be held up to objective scrutiny. And if you want to go down that path then be very, very careful. It is always possible to prove that someone has met/not met their objectives if you really want to get into it.

I am sorry to sound harsh, these are my experiences of living within performance management systems of a number of different organisations.

Rannoch

Pete The Biker

I accept that there will always be people who are better than others, and if the assessment was all geared to that I would have no problem with it.

What sticks in my throat is that we go through the farce of setting objectives, milestones, achievement assessments etc etc etc (destroying a few rain forests on the way) only to get an arbitrary mark based on a completely different basis of assessment.

Pete The Biker