Does Ranking Team Member Performance Make Sense?

Do you rank employees?

Does your organization use a system of listing employees from "top performers" to "bottom performers"? You may call them something else, but do you use that kind of system?

When I worked at GE we were forced, as leaders, to force rank our employees. Everyone had to fit within 9 categories. We used whatever measures we could to arrive at something resembling a logical order.

The problem is, how do you compare across job platforms? How do you compare the performance of a claims adjuster to recruiter? How do you compare a customer service rep to an underwriter?

How do you know that you are measuring the right things?

How do you know that your assessment is accurate and unbiased?

How do you know that next year your company will need the same skills and goals as this year?

If you hired correctly in the first place and have been doing your job as a team leader to develop a cohesive, high performance team that works collaboratively with each other instead of competitively, what gives you the right to assess one of your team members as the "bottom of the pack"?

Ranking team member performance lacks both accuracy and usefulness.

Used as a way to cut the bottom 5% or 10% it is cruel, non-compassionate, and foolhardy.

As leaders, we can do better than that.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

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