Stack ranking where managers in a company evaluate employees by providing a certain percentage in relation to their levels of performance. the term can is also called forced distribution since the method is not subjective. Microsoft uses the method to rank employee's level of performance from worst to best forcing managers to make difficult decisions. The method faces criticism all over since high performing employees are rewarded forcing low performers to move out. In a company about only 10 percent of employees can be designated as top performers, (Hrebiniak, p. 203). Therefore, the chance of a company to lose its creative people is high. The use of stack ranking by Microsoft has faced discontentment even from its employees since it’s a method where workers are wrongly evaluated. The stack method has been a source of employee discontentment over the years it has in progress. In 2009 about 49 percent of companies used this method according to the research carried by institute cooperate productivity (Hrebiniak, p. 277). The figure has rapidly fallen, and only 6 percent used the method in 2011. The forced ranking method denied average performers a chance to improve since they were forced to quit. The method adopted by Microsoft is unacceptable in the current workforce because employees lack teamwork. The lack of teamwork leads to competition between the employees resulting to poor outcome. Microsoft idea of adopting the method was wrong and not applicable in the modern world of innovation and changed trends. The best method of evaluating employee’s performance is encouraging employee’s empowerment, growth and development in the company. In this model, managers assume the role of facilitators, sponsors and coaches in the company. According to Dawson, The managers organizes educative forums where employees are given meaningful discussions o n how to improve (Dawson, p. 131). The management encourages employees to put effort in their field of work for personal and the companies’ growth. Empowerment involves delegating decision-making power of important duties to the manager and the employees. The company then creates job specific criteria where employees are taught on how to handle their workplace for effective performance. Companies that organized discussion forums to its employees had an overwhelming growth over a short period. In additional, the companies provided bonuses to the employees to encourage better workforce. The forums also provided the opportunity of the workers to discuss issues observed in the company. Through the empowerment forums, the company can get fast solutions to problems, reducing organizational costs and encourage growth in the company. The model is effective if the manager sets clear, obtainable goals and well defined to the employees. Implementation of Employee’s empowerment method also has its limitations in the company. Managers sometimes allocate meaningless tasks to their employees and expect clear results (Davila, and Marc, p. 153). Since the managers are the overall coaches in this model, they expect employees to report and consult them for everything before approval decreasing the workforce. This model can encourage lack of growth since managers delegate trivial duties to employees and deal with complicated and important tasks. The empowerment and growth model cannot succeed until the decision-making tasks are apparently significant to the employees causing conflicts in the company. The forced ranking method has many negative effects making it difficult to implement in companies. Employees in a hyper-competitive firm are encouraged to outperform fellow workmates causing lack of cooperation among them (Dytham, p. 183). The employees focus on individual performance instead of working for the growth of the company as the case of Microsoft. The method is difficult to maintain because expectations of the company are poorly explained leading to low performance. The process is unfair since it is difficult to clearly measure working skills of individuals in a company making it hard to implement it. The process of singling peoples poor as the because of yahoo is wrong since it kills the morale of the workers. It is, therefore, difficult to Implement stack ranking as a method to evaluate employees is difficult.
Works Cited:
Davila, Tony, and Marc J. Epstein. The Innovation Paradox: Why Good Businesses Kill Breakthroughs and How They Can Change. , 2014. Internet resource
Dawson, Christopher S. Leading Culture Change: What Every Ceo Needs to Know. Stanford, Calif: Stanford Business Books, 2010. Internet resource.
Dytham, Calvin. Choosing and Using Statistics: A Biologist's Guide. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print
Hrebiniak, Lawrence G. Making Strategy Work: Leading Effective Execution and Change. , 2013. Print
