#performancemanagement

Why do all internal websites now take ages to load?

As thankful as I am to be employed, the nightmare here never ends. It isn’t the work itself that is stressful, it’s the culture. There’s too little focus on competence and too much focus on sycophancy. Some senior “leaders” know nothing, don’t listen and make baseless, bullsh-t decisions (ahem Lise). I don’t know how people with zero technical acumen can make technical decisions. Furthermore, they are too bull-headed and busy kissing ELT a** to even take practical, technical advice. Additionally, they are trying to manage people out; even employees who have been high-performing are getting slammed across the board, pretty much out of nowhere. If ever there was a toxic environment, this is it!

Verizon needs to focus on the quality of people not the friendships they have outside of work. The entire DMV needs a major shake up and they need to replace the entire leadership staff starting with Thompson. He loves to hire his friends and then over looks there sh---y performance. If you’re not a Clark County boy you’re treated differently, not trusted and quite frankly not liked.

Are they a thing?

Getting fired is now like a subscription service with multiple cancellation tiers.

“Layoff” if they’re feeling honest.

“Restructuring” if they’re feeling corporate.

“Performance management” if they want you to blame yourself.

“Voluntary separation” if they want you to fire yourself.

“Attrition” if they want to pretend nobody actually did anything.

“Role elimination” if they want to make it sound like your job died peacefully in its sleep.

“Strategic realignment” if they want you to believe your career simply took a wrong turn.

“Workforce optimization” if they want to imply the workforce was somehow the problem.

“Doing more with less” if they want to give you three jobs and one salary.

“Organizational simplification” if they want fewer people doing twice the work.

At this point, the only thing being optimized is the dictionary definition of unemployment.

They don’t need an HR department anymore.

They need a thesaurus with a severance budget.

Noone is safe

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/professional-genius_strategy-founders-corporateculture-activity-7452045773720125441-FtZa

I have never seen anything official announcing that a PIP process would be enforced on the lowest ranked 5% in the new performance system.

Where did this all come from ? … or is it all rumour mill ?

To ensure fair and objective decisions, review system/login data for attendance, leave, WFH, and actual work activity. Use verified records and job impact rather than assumptions or personal relationships.

I am starting to think they are just cycling all the non sponsored people through NI and NSI now. Is that the game they are playing?

If you are not sponsored the day is coming for you to be dropped in the rankings for no reason. You’ve been warned. When it happens it happens fast.

I have seen the exact same behavior labeled as passion and excused resulting in OWD label and then another person with no issue but some backstabbing feedback claiming the person gets upset being put in NSI for much less to nonexistent behavior.

What you do or do not do is meaningless. They will spin it to get the outcome they want.

I received several formal recognition letters and awards from management and then somehow dropped all the way to NI a place I have never been even close to. Manager couldn’t explain any reasons why.

More and more supervisors are admitting in feedback sessions that the ranking system is broken and assessment outcomes make no sense.

I get it. Posting on linkedin about their promotions is a source of pride for them. About 8% get promoted and 15% get put on a PIP to be fired. The next round of calibrations for end of year 2026 those same people will have to fight again just to not be on the bottom 15%. What a nightmare.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cruzcorral_pip-corporatehumor-work-activity-7434656145543409664-9dID?utm_medium=ios_app&rcm=ACoAACDWavgB0LGL5W2TtBE3pepi5Q5gBI1-dF8&utm_source=social_share_video_v2&utm_campaign=copy_link

What could lead to it? Will he fight or quit?

What tactics Cisco managers use before putting IC on PIP? PIP cause is very subjective.

Is this distribution valid for all teams?
O – 20%
E – 20%
VG – 20%
G – 20%
NI – 20% (includes NSI at 5% or8%)

I’m in the MAC program. My manager told me people can be ranked anywhere from NSI to O even in MAC, but my teammate said that in the first year (MAC) people are automatically ranked “Good.” Which one is actually true?

Do execs have similar ranking process as the rest of us?

If so, do they have similar levels of MLRP?

They changed the rules so now managers can only give out a finite amount of "exceeds expectations" - just another way Oracle is now sc--wing over employees and making teams compete internally with each other!

When you and your manager have an obviously broken working dynamic, when some people who dislike you influence your manager, when you’re deliberately given assignments designed to rank you , PIP communication itself is firm from day one and their body language shows zero positivity, when they hand you a long list of vague expectations, monitor every move, invade your privacy, and openly discuss your situation with others, and when they assign “coaches” to you just to build a case ... you’re being set up to fail.

But when a manager tells you it’s okay that you were ranked in a new CL and that you can work through it together, when expectations are clear, when documentation is minimal or none, when they protect your privacy, put you on visible projects, give you meaningful roles, and advocate for you .... they’re preparing to pass you.

All it takes is everyone or the majority saying they will not be participating in it anymore and there is nothing they can do. They can't NSI everyone! Spread the word and make them stop!

Thousands of Google employees have signed a petition demanding improved layoff protections. The Alphabet Workers Union is advocating for severance packages at least matching previous terms and the offer of voluntary buyouts before involuntary layoffs. They also seek the option of extended paid leave instead of lump-sum severance, particularly for visa holders. Additionally, the union opposes a quota-based performance rating system they believe unfairly impacts employees. These demands come amidst a significant increase in tech industry layoffs, with AI restructuring cited as a major driver.

Mountain View, California

https://hrexecutive.com/google-employees-demand-severance-guarantees-as-tech-layoffs-near-157000/

So there is a new tactic that everyone should know about. Since performance management was released, managers have been in touch with HR to understand how they can give more money to their reports that are their friends or family. And the only solution from HR is this -> employees that are seen as critical to business needs and have a legal offer letter from another company will get a salary hike above the normal SAP limitations to match their offer.

So basically, if you have a friend who has a company, ask them to create an AI-related job for you and make you and offer - it has to be a written offer and cannot be just an email or verbal confirmation. And then your managers starts the process by creating an HR ticket and getting an exception for you and increasing your salary.

But the caveat is this - HR has been asked to reject as many of these as possible.

For a handful of roles where a manager is well connected within SAP, they will get HR to approve this and give 10% or more salary hikes. For almost all other roles, they will decline and then HR will flag that you are not committed to working at SAP and find ways to get rid of your role.

So if your area executive or T5 manager of managers or your T4/T5 manager is asking you to find a good role and get an offer and use it to increase your salary, DO NOT DO THAT. A lot of area executives are peddling this as an idea to work around performance management limitations. It is a farce.

This only works if that manager has already made a deal with HR. Otherwise you will not get an increased salary but be asked to join that other job. HR is doing this to easily identify people who can be laid off without a severance. They are also using sick leave and AI usage data to decide who should be put on a performance improvement plan and laid off subsequently.

Be careful of the sneaky HR and area executives and managers.

Can Execs get PIP’d or demoted to Non-Exec due to poor ranking?

Each cycle has a target percentage that must land in MLRP (NI + NSI). That percentage isn’t identical across all organizations, but the weighted average across the whole function has to match whatever HR planned for that year. Is it possible for some teams in some orgs to have zero NI or NSI in a cycle?

George Kurian's legacy won't be maybe hitting $10B in revenue at some point. His legacy, along with Beth O'Callahans, will be constant layoffs and total decimation of the NetApp culture that had been built over the years. Beth's legacy will be the same since she is a big driver behind the new forced distribution performance rewards and the in-office mandates. Sadly, the direct reports to them just blindly follow along.

Watch the Cisco Beat today...
They have rediscovered serious performance monitoring and evaluation and participation in the bullsh-t side of it is becoming mandatory. As a result they are moving it out of all the clunky tools they have today--into a new tool. Which is???

WEBEX!!

Yup, Webex. Likely so that they can use AI to run it all in the backend (which they own/control). So, from now on, you'll be effectively reporting to an AI tool that will evaluate your performance against the latest/greatest HR fashions.

Which means that next time they need to get rid of x'000 people they can ask AI for the list. Which is probably not good news for middle managers.

Complete the sentence.

Just commented this in another thread, but thought may be worth mentioning.

Based on other people’s posts today, it’s confirmed the MLRP policy change is being applied retroactively (2 NSI in 5 years = termination). Instead of it being effective starting this year when announced and the tracking beginning from 2025 performance forward, they are pulling in past performance for 5 years back.

What’s stopping them from saying next year, “anyone that has receive 3 Very Good performance in the past 10 years will now be eligible for a PIP”?

Guess I’m a big d-mb d-mb for thinking they would treat this similar to how the US constitution prohibits ex post facto laws for criminal conduct.

Well, it finally happened. Got called into a “quick sync” with my manager Monday morning. HR was already in the room, which tells you everything. They slid the PIP paperwork across the table, and before I could even read the “performance expectations” section, they informed me that because this was my second PIP in a five-year window, company policy allowed them to skip the improvement period entirely. Effective immediately. I was walked back to my desk by security to grab my jacket and my kid’s drawing off the monitor. Badge deactivated before I hit the parking garage. Eleven years, and I was out of the building in under 40 minutes. Some context for anyone who hasn’t been through the Exxon performance machine: the forced ranking system means somebody is always in the bottom bucket. Doesn’t matter how the team performs. My first PIP in 2022 came after a reorg where my entire project got shelved so nothing to show for the year because there was nothing left to show. I survived it, “closed it out successfully,” and naively thought that was behind me.

Management is rolling out a brand-new "Competency Model" framework for upcoming mid-year reviews that completely changes the rules of our jobs right after a massive layoff. They are introducing a mandatory "AI Competency" metric, requiring everyone to use AI tools daily and even "configure simple agents" just to be rated as "Effective" in their roles. This is a transparent move to force a smaller, surviving workforce to use automation to absorb all the leftover work from our departed colleagues. By rushing this out by August 31 alongside mid-year "goal adjustments," management is building a paper trail that redefines what it means to do your job well. If you don't adopt these new automated workflows, they can mark you as underperforming even if you are doing your core job perfectly, creating a loop hole for them to shift to performance-based terminations instead of layoffs so they can dodge paying severance down the road. Just when you think they can’t go any lower, they now want to take away severance pay

More information will be shared via emails regarding Project Fuji which is actually a continuation of Project Mongoose but with a different name. Lots of discussions between HR and the Betriebsrat this time and the HR definitely won.

The works council just approved the layoff of 8000 of 14000 jobs that Christian Klein and Dominic Asam wanted. This will happen gradually and all hiring managers are supposed to give preference to internal candidates first. Anyone who has been found to not use AI in the last many months or isn't deemed AI ready will have to undergo compulsory training or face layoffs. They are going to add more sections in Performance Management and force all employees to have an AI related goal. Managers make the final decision on whether employees are AI ready or not and this will impact the HOW and WHAT scores.

But this is devastating news nonetheless. I can't wait for my non-technical development manager to tell me that I am not burning enough AI tokens on something frivolous. She uses them all the time to create presentation graphics and vibe coding and none of that is actually creating any value for SAP customers. But she's an AI star now and actually "coaches" developers on how to use AI in day-to-day life.There are also discussions ongoing with the supervisory board to increase share buybacks and the dividend in the upcoming quarter. HR wants to use "any money saved through layoffs and performance management" to be used towards this.SAP is on track to become one of the worst companies to work for.

I joined Tech going on a year now, and I have been working to improve accountability and address long-standing performance issues. Not to be punitive, but because it’s better to deal with low performance directly than end up laying off good employees later.

My biggest frustration has been HR and specifically, employee relations supporting Tech. It’s hard to get a clear answer on what action to take, harder to get a response, and when you do, the guidance often contradicts what leaders in other departments are being told.

I know they’re under pressure too, and I’ve tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. But when managers can’t get consistent support, it makes leading my teams a lot harder. At some point, that becomes an HR leadership issue. I hope their senior leadership is paying attention.

My manager literally said in a meeting that she has never given an Exceeds. Seems to track as before joining this company, I've always gotten very high performance marks but since coming here, it's always Meets. Does anyone have similar stories? I only started reporting to this team this year.

More than half of my team is not meeting productivity due to lack of work. We’re all getting verbal coaching done. Our PL just said in order to not be laid off we need to meet but it’s impossible. All of this is just crazy to me.

Or is it done throughout the year and is person-based? We had a PIP season in my last company, and it was seldom related to performance. I'm just wondering if it's the same here.

Do you or your team have to install WorkIQ? Company is using WorkIQ to get rid of employee making silly excuses.

Many large companies still use some version of forced ranking, stack ranking, or quota-based performance management where a certain percentage of employees end up in the bottom bucket regardless of overall team performance.

Supporters say it drives accountability and prevents complacency.

Critics argue it creates:

• Internal competition instead of collaboration
• Risk aversion and politics
• Managers spending time managing rankings instead of developing people
• Employees focusing on visibility rather than impact
• Anxiety that reduces long-term engagement

If an organization is profitable, meeting business objectives, and retaining strong talent, what would actually convince leadership to eliminate forced ranking and PIPs as a routine management tool?

Would it take:

• Better performance metrics?
• Evidence of lower turnover?
• A major labor shortage?
• Executive leadership that came up through different systems?
• Or is forced ranking simply too useful for managing headcount and compensation budgets?

For those who have worked at companies that abandoned stack ranking, what replaced it and did it work better?

Interested in hearing experiences from both managers and individual contributors.

Arby: We Have The Meats
Wells: Meets or No Meets