

These will be timed based on the rhythm of each part of our business, introducing more flexibility in how and when we discuss performance and development rather than following one timeline for the whole company.

Through a process called “Connects” we are optimizing for more timely feedback and meaningful discussions to help employees learn in the moment, grow and drive great results. More emphasis on employee growth and development.We’re getting more specific about how we think about successful performance and are focusing on three elements – not just the work you do on your own, but also how you leverage input and ideas from others, and what you contribute to others’ success – and how they add up to greater business impact. More emphasis on teamwork and collaboration.It's less well suited, he says, for evaluating engineers, among whom management may want to create closer collaboration.To learn more about the new approach to performance and development, please join me for a Town Hall today at 2:00pm PT, either in person in building 92 or via webcast (see details below). Stack-ranking is fine, says Smith, for evaluating performance in a sales organization, where managers may want to heighten competition. 'Stack ranking' is said to have been extremely damaging just about everything at Microsoft. "It's only magnified in the tech sector." Microsoft's move away from stack-ranking he terms "a pivot." "There's an absolute talent war on now," Smith says. Major Microsoft investors want Bill Gates out as chairman He calls it "not a bad model," but perhaps not the one best suited to a tech company bent on retaining top talent.
EMPLOYEE STACK RANKING SOFTWARE
Ryan Smith, CEO of Qualtrics, a maker of performance-evaluation software systems for corporate and non-corporate clients, tells ABC News that stack-ranking is used by a wide variety of companies in many industries. The 1-to-5 rating system, she said, also would be eliminated. "We will continue to invest in a generous rewards budget, but there will no longer be a pre-determined targeted distribution." Henceforth, she said, managers will have the flexibility to reward teams and individuals however they see fit, provided they stay within their compensation budgets. "No more curve," said Brummel in the memo. The memo, published by the Seattle Times, explains that the new approach will have three elements: Greater emphasis on teamwork and collaboration better and more frequent feedback to employees about performance and elimination of the bell curve. Lisa Brummel, vice president of human resources at Microsoft, sent a memo to all employees saying that the company will dispense with the practice and move instead to a different system of review-"a fundamentally new approach" more in line with the One Microsoft strategy. New version of Microsoft Xbox just released Wrote he: "Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed-every one-cited stack-ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft." He quoted a former Microsoft software developer as saying, "It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other, rather than competing with other companies." Tech Firms Slow to Ditch Stack Ranking,’ Despite Evidence It Saps Worker Morale, Productivity. Journalist Kurt Eichenwald blamed stack-ranking for having created a inward-looking culture more focused on back-stabbing and office politics than on the outside world. Some of the most stinging appeared in Vanity Fair this August, in an article titled "Microsoft's Lost Decade." For that reason, stack-ranking came in for criticism-from inside Microsoft and from without. The curve dictated that every group-even one made up entirely of all-stars-would have its share of 5's. Bottom-scorers got reassignment or the boot. Top-performers got a grade of 1 bottom-performers a grade of 5. Under stack-ranking, managers graded their subordinates according to a bell curve. Stack ranking broadly refers to any system in which teams are reviewed on a curve, with employees ranking at the bottom often getting put on performance-improvement plans. It follows, too, Ballmer's August announcement that he will be stepping down as chief executive within 12 months. The move follows a July announcement by CEO Steve Ballmer that Microsoft would be implementing a new corporate strategy-called "One Microsoft"-to get its products and services in better sync.

But is the forced-curve ranking popularized by General Electric's Jack Welch really so bad? 14, 2013 - As part of its ongoing effort to re-invent itself, Microsoft announced yesterday it would stop "stack-ranking"-the much-reviled practice it has used up until now to evaluate and reward its employees.
