Forced Ranking: Analyzing and Improving Workforce Performance - Essay Sample

Introduction

The forced ranking evaluation system is used by organizations and companies to analyze their workforce performance, identify the weak areas in their employment system, and make the needed improvements in the existing weaknesses. The process involves appraising of individual employees of the company on their performance over a certain period, comparing them against one another and ranking the employees from the highest performer to the lowest (Buckingham, 2013). Organizations that are involved in marketing use this evaluation system to ensure that they provide the best marketing solutions to their clients, maintain their edge, and maintain a high-performance workforce. This paper discusses the Forced Ranking Evaluation System.

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Forced Ranking Evaluation in a Marketing Agency

• The company will have a ranking standard ranking system for each work group that is the:
• The field marketing group
• Field supervisory and leadership group
• The administration group.
• The ranking system will be in the form of a questionnaire that is to be filled by a rater; in this case, the managers of the company (Grote, 2005).
• Each employee will be questioned in the following areas in their specific fields.
• Their knowledge of the company they are working in, and this will include their understanding of the mission and vision of the company and its relatability to its clients.
• Their knowledge of their current role in the company and the expectations of both the client and the company when it comes to their performance.
• An evaluation of their performance and comparison against the optimum required standard required by both the client and the company.
• The challenges they face hindering them from attaining the highest performance standard.
• What steps they are taking in improving their performance in the workplace and the assistance they require to realize this.
• The improvements the employee thinks the company should make to make the working environment more conducive.
• Their satisfaction with their current position in the company, why, and if they feel they deserve better pay or promotion in the company.

The evaluation system will begin with the administration group and go down to the field marketing group. In each group, the employees are to be compared with one another determining the best performers, the average performers, and a distribution bell curve will determine the poor performers in the company (Eichenwald, 2012). The purpose of the ranking system is to determine which of the employees qualify for a promotion in the company, and who in the company needs to be coached more or laid off, to improve the working standards of the company.

Pros of Forced Ranking Evaluation

With the employees being ranked from the poorest to the best performers in the process, there is likely to be an improved work standard as every worker would want to fall on the best performing category which has its benefits such as bonuses and positional promotions (Eichenwald, 2012). The system is also designed to distinguish the poor performers in the company hence making it easy to evaluate the training and assistance needed for the employees to improve the services provided by the company.

The company can also use the system to identify and differentiate the skills of individual employees from their talent and hence can place the individual at a position where their maximum potential can be explored.

Cons of Forced Ranking Evaluation System

Because the performance ranking is done at an individual level, there is likely to be a form of different bases competition and less of teamwork as each one would like to be at the top of the chart and so sharing ideas to improve the work standard of the team would be compromised (Prud'homme, von Zedtwitz, Thraen & Bader, 2018). The ranking distribution is also done based on the bell curve and so some very well performing individuals might be downgraded to the average class to meet the distribution curve hence giving an inaccurate picture of the actual workforce.

The distribution curve also forces a group of employees into the low performing class and so can be demoralizing to the employee although some of them may be doing better than what is reported or might be facing real challenges beyond their power that would be affecting their work standard. Individuals do most of the forced ranking evaluation at a higher capacity in the workplace, and the assessment is done against fellow employees. There is, therefore, likely a chance of biases and favouritism when it comes to rating.

Use of Technology in Forced Ranking System

The traditional method of forced evaluation mostly employs the use of a questionnaire that is filled by a rater after a certain period. On the contrary, technology can be used to track the performance of individual employees on a day to day basis rather than after long periods. Mobile Apps have been developed to enable companies to track the work of employees daily, their understanding of their various roles, their relationship with the clients as well as the challenges that they face in the workplace (Prud'homme et al. 2018).

The use of technology will provide a more accurate report as it allows for daily work record as opposed to word of mouth after a long period. Use of technology is beneficial in reducing the occurrence of biases or favoritism as the employees would be ranked based on the digital data provided from the Apps and not from a human point of view.

Summary

The forced ranking system is an evaluation system that has been used to rank employees at workplaces. The distribution of the performance is based on the feedback the employer gets from the employee and is compared to the productivity of other employees in the same workgroup. The ranking is done using a bell curve distribution graph classifying the workers as poor average or best performers. The system is advantageous in that it helps to improve the standard of the workforce as well as promote competition among the employees. There are, however, certain disadvantages that are associated with the ranking system such as unhealthy individual-based competition that does not promote teamwork in the company as each yearns to be ranked as the best performing in the system. The human factor in the process also presents a question of biases and favoritism that may affect the final presentation of the picture on the ground. The process can be improved by the use of technology such as the use of mobile Apps which will enable the daily and more accurate tracking of individual employees resulting in a more accurate rating of each in the company. The forced ranking system has been used for an extended period and continues to be employed by many organizations; there are however improvements that can be made to make the evaluation system a more reliable tool for use by employers.

References

Buckingham, M. (2013). Trouble with the curve? Why Microsoft is ditching stack rankings. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2013/11/dont-rate-your-employees-on-a-curve

Eichenwald, K. (2012). Microsoft's downfall: Inside the executive e-mails and cannibalistic culture that felled a tech giant'. Vanity Fair, 3. Retrieved from: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer

Grote, R. C. (2005). Forced ranking: Making performance management work. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Retrieved from: http://www.groteconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Harvard-Business-School-Forced-Ranking-Making-Performance-Management-Work-November-14-2005.pdf

Prud'homme, D., von Zedtwitz, M., Thraen, J. J., & Bader, M. (2018). "Forced technology transfer" policies: Workings in China and strategic implications. Technological forecasting and social change, 134, 150-168. Retrieved from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162517304602