I can only rate one person on my team “exceptional,” boss asks for weekly constructive criticism, and more

by Alison Green on April 11, 2025

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…

1. I can only rate one person on my team “exceptional” no matter how well they do

My company uses a fairly robust framework for discussing performance. This is generally really helpful, as it provides me with clear feedback to share with my team. For example, I can say, “Good performance is handling your workload independently. Exceptional performance is also mentoring newer colleagues while you stay on top of your work.” The problem is that the framework was designed for companies with complex hierarchies with many positions to move through. My company has only 10 levels between the CEO and the lowest person on the chart, so promotions are rare.

Between AAM advice and pure luck, I’ve assembled a really high-performing team. Everyone is super motivated and wants to excel. We’ve now worked together for 5+ years and everyone understands how to surpass the expectations for their roles to the point where a few are even working at my level. But now I’m getting pressure from a new grandboss to force-rank my team and grade them on a curve. On one hand, I get it, the bar can reset to “new normal,” but on the other hand I’m at a loss. If I’m giving Brian feedback, I need to outline a path where he can succeed, but if I get to the end of the year and Abby still stayed slightly ahead of him, I can’t give him the higher rating even if he put in all the work I outlined for him to earn it. My own manager handles it by suddenly getting super critical of things that she’d been saying were excellent, and based on how it makes me feel, I don’t want to manage my team in that way. On my end, I usually try to help my team understand how our systems work, but saying some polite variation of “even though you’re amazing, Abby’s a step ahead of you, so I’m not going to reward you fully because there’s a curve” is clearly a terrible idea.

Personally I think it’s ridiculous that we can’t reward long-tenured employees who are super engaged with the rating they deserve or at least create smaller steps up the ladder to properly reset expectations along the way, but this is a battle I don’t have political standing to fight. So my question is really more how do I speak with my team about their performance in a way that doesn’t demotivate them yet also doesn’t leave me at the end of the year with four employees who did everything I outlined as exceptional behavior and only one rating to award?

The best thing you can do is to be honest about how the system works: let them know you’re being required to force-rank and only have one “exceptional” to give out. Tell them that’s not the way you would have structured it and you’re aware that it creates an opening for people with truly exceptional performance not to be rewarded for it. This won’t be good for morale, obviously — but pretending that it’s not happening (or trying to convince people it’s their fault, as your boss does) would be even worse.

Meanwhile, can you push for them to be compensated appropriately for their high level of work even if they don’t have an “exceptional” rating? Or do raises correlate with the ratings? If the latter, this is even worse — and a recipe not only for demoralizing your team, but for tension in their relationships with each other too, since people are less likely to be supportive of and collaborative with coworkers who they see as being in direct and unfair competition with them for fair pay.

In addition, can you look for other ways to ensure they’re rewarded and be explicit that you’re doing that, even if it’s just getting them more professional development funds or the opportunity to work on a project they’re really interested in?

But also, please try pointing out all of this to your grandboss. I know you said you don’t have the standing to fight this battle, but you don’t need to approach it as a battle; you can simply share the way you expect it to play out on your team, and that it’s likely to disincentivize the high performance you’ve gotten from them under the previous system.

2. My boss asks for weekly constructive criticism, and I don’t have any

My relatively new boss just took a management seminar and came in with a new framework for our weekly check-ins. It’s two pages long and, among other things, asks me to fill out one thing from the week I think I can do better, and one thing I think my boss can do better. I appreciate the sentiment but I feel like I don’t have anything to say to my boss. I’m new in this role too and, while he does bug me sometimes, I feel like I just need to be taking everything in and adapting right now, not sharing any poorly-thought-out feedback with him. He’s also extremely conscientious and type A so I think would be very sensitive — perhaps overly so — to any comments I offered. I want to just say something kind of anodyne, but the prompt is so precise that I can’t think of the right thing to seem like I participated without being specific. (I can answer the question about what I personally can do better okay, although I hope it doesn’t end up being ammunition to use against me later.)

Big picture, I think this structure is unnecessary on a weekly basis — annual maybe — and I’m guessing it will naturally trail off over time … but I don’t want to reject a new idea he’s excited about by saying this isn’t really my kind of thing, especially when our relationship is so new. I’m not much of a talker naturally and tend to be more task-based, while these questions are bigger-picture. Do you have any suggestions about what I can put in the box besides “nothing” every week?

You can write, “Nothing this week” or “Nothing comes to mind this week but I will share if/when something does.” However, you could also use that space just for things you need in your job, like “could I get more training in X?” or “this isn’t something you should do better, but I could use your help brainstorming Y.”

You’re right that this question is too much for weekly, especially for someone who’s new! And I suspect you’re right that its use will trail off over time. But if he does nudge you about it meanwhile, it’s fine to say, “I appreciate you making space for it, but I’m still new and learning and not in a position where I have that kind of feedback yet.”

3. Who pays for lunch?

My former manager recently retired and told me that they’d love to meet up for lunch periodically. We had a great working relationship and I’d love to have a friendship moving forward now that they’re no longer my boss. So far, we’ve had one lunch (they paid). We have another lunch scheduled for next month, which they initiated.

Should I assume that my former manager is typically going to pick up the check, or should I offer to pay every other month, or split the bill? Does it depend on who initiates the lunch? I don’t want to offend them by offering to pay, or by NOT offering to pay! If it matters, my former manager is around 30 years my senior and made around five times my salary (my position is slightly above entry-level).

You should offer to cover the check every few lunches. Chances are good that your former boss will say no, it’s on them (because of the differences in seniority/stage of life)— but you should at least offer and be prepared to follow through. You’re very unlikely to offend them by offering to pay (even if they tell you no), and there’s a higher risk of them noticing you never offer and feeling taken for granted (especially if this is moving more toward friendship than business acquaintances).

4. Could a bonus be considered a disability accommodation?

I currently have an injury that makes it painful to work unless I’m lying flat on my back. WFH and 90% behind the scenes work means this hasn’t been a problem, but once in a while I will grit my teeth to sit in an office chair so I can look professional on a client-facing Zoom call. This isn’t strictly required, but it certainly contributes positively to the client relationship.

I’ve been joking with my manager that the company owes me $100 for every hour I sit up in pain for them. Obviously this would never happen. But I’d like to dream. So is it technically possible to get a spot bonus as an accommodation for doing work that my disability prevents me from doing without significant pain? It could go toward physical therapy or my upcoming surgery bill … I just got off one such call and had to roll around shouting and crying while my body adjusted back to not being in The Bad Position.

Being paid extra money as an accommodation would be a hard sell under the framework of the law. Legally, the point of accommodations is to make changes that allow you to perform the essential functions of your job — so removing an activity that causes you pain, yes, or buying an adaptive tool that allows you to sit up without pain, sure. But “be in pain and we’ll pay you extra for it” isn’t likely to be considered an accommodation in the legal sense.

A reasonable accommodation in this case would be “you don’t have to be on camera on client calls, so you can staying lying down.” That sounds like the thing you should be asking for! (In fact, it sounds like you could just do it, if you’re the one who’s been choosing to be on camera. Please choose that rather than the thing that makes you cry in pain!)

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{ 223 comments }

{ 223 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. Anon for this*

    LW #4: I told my office that without a specific accommodation, I would end up needing at LEAST a full day to recover from the health side effects, including pain.

    Their response?

    They offered me a sick day because they didn’t want to give me “special treatment”. not because they couldn’t afford it, or because it was unreasonable.

    They literally responded to “doing this will literally make me sick” with “okay we can give you time off for that then”. they were okay with causing me pain and that’s so not okay

    BUT! They said that if I could get a doctor’s note saying this was the accomodation I needed, they’d accommodate me, so that’s the route I took! it did indeed significantly help. I am SO glad I got the accomodation instead.

    It’s so wild to me that they’d rather give me a sick day than the accommodation considering that the sick day is worth about 6x more than the accomodation would have cost.

    Please don’t trade additional pain and suffering for the sake of “being professional”. I know it’s hard to stick out because you have disabilities.

    You deserve better.

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    2. Annie*

      I suspect the real reason for difficulty in that case comes down to office politics AKA “that’s better than what the VP has” or optics AKA “somebody might judge or ask awkward questions”.

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      1. Antilles*

        My thought was optics but in a “well, I want that too!” kind of way. Nobody except your manager and HR are counting your sick days to realize that you got 16 sick days instead of 15 this year. But if the accommodation was, idk, buying a nice headset/microphone to replace the one that gives you headaches, then every single person who walks by your cubicle sees it and suddenly starts asking for a replacement headset.

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        1. Turquoisecow*

          Kind of the reverse of this but when I started my first full time job almost 20 years ago the office all had CRT monitors, some of which barely functioned. My first two or three weeks coincided with a huge reorganization of the office space and desks so I didn’t have a computer and had to borrow from someone who was out. When I finally got a desk, I got a brand new computer instead of a hand me down, and a flat screen monitor.

          Immediately I was the envy of the entire office as people who’d worked there as long as I’d been alive were squinting at CRT monitors and complaining the newbie got a new setup. One particular older coworker wanted to complain to HR and bring up the fact that his eyesight was fading so he would benefit from a newer monitor. So if the accommodation is something like that, I could see it leading others to realize they could benefit from a similar thing and then suddenly the company is spending a bunch of money on stuff they didn’t budget for.

          In my case eventually everyone got new monitors so the awkward period of envy went away, but it was somewhat uncomfortable to be working on my bland entry level stuff and have VPs three or four levels above me stop and go “huh, that’s a nice computer and monitor. Why do YOU get the good stuff and I don’t?”

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          1. TGIF*

            You know that reminds me of when I was working at a different phone company than I am now, and flat screen monitors were just starting to be a thing. I was in repair and volunteered to work on call christmas day (because I knew there were be no calls on a holiday), and the guys on the team let me have the “good” monitor because I took that day. No jealousy at all.

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      2. NotAnotherManager!*

        It’s more about parity, consistency, and process. You can’t have one manager approving every employee request and other denying them all. My current organization is pro-accommodation, but you do have to have a doctor’s note explaining what you need (and we do provide health insurance and 28 days of PTO so that’s not impossible). It’s also pro-giving-you-the-tools-to-do-your-specific-job.

        The amount of time I’ve wasted over the years dealing with “but so-and-so got X, and I didn’t” from grown-ups is unreal. I have to do the work to get someone a resource they need, and then I have to do twice as much dealing with the people who think it’s unfair (all without disclosing any sensitive/personal info for medical accommodations). The only reasons people get something “special” here are doctor-recommended accommodation or business need.

        Before second monitors were widespread, we issued them to a team that was doing full-time document review. The level of complaining was unreal, including from higher-ups who were made juniors got things they didn’t. I got kind of fed up and just started telling everyone that complained that, if they could also commit to reviewing 5,000 documents a week, I could get them onto the team and in on the dual monitor action. No one took me up on it.

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    3. kalli*

      More likely, if they accommodated outside of the legal process for doing so, they’d have to do it for everyone; using the existing legal process enabled them to provide it without then having to give Wakeen his own teapot and Jane a llama-yarn-cover for her lumbar cushion and Fergus unlimited flex time because they asked.

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      1. Annony*

        That’s what it sounded like to me. They do not want to give informal accommodations because they could get into legally murky waters if they accommodate some without a doctors not but not others. Everyone has access to sick days so that was an easy thing to allow but the other accommodation may be something they have denied others so they want to CYA by getting the doctors note.

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    4. karstmama*

      OP, can you stand instead? Would that be any better? I’m bet it occurred to you, but I’m putting it out there in case it might help another person. Different folks can do one thing but not another.

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      1. Anonturtle*

        I suspect no, since they said “I currently have an injury that makes it painful to work unless I’m lying flat on my back.”

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        1. Annony*

          It depends. I had a back injury that made sitting excruciating and laying down was the only position that was sustainable but I could stand for longer than I could sit and it took less time to recover afterwards. If OP thinking standing for the length of the meeting would make the meetings tolerable, asking for a standing desk might be a reasonable accommodation even if they still lay down the majority of the time.

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          1. Mad Harry Crewe*

            Same – back injury where I could stand, lie, or recline (couch was ok), but sitting in an office chair was misery after a few hours. I figured out that standing was fine after a meeting where we were short on chairs and I stood – and skipped taking my morning painkiller without even noticing. Requested a standing desk (with doctor’s note) the next day.

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        2. SI joint issues*

          My mom has had a lower back injury for decades that has made it difficult for her to walk or stand for any length of time, and utterly impossible for her to sit. A standing desk is her only option.

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    5. toolegittoresign*

      Thank you! I was coming here to say “please don’t set a precedent at your workplace where people literally sacrifice their well-being for money.”

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      1. Artax*

        Yeah, same. In addition to just being horrific on the face of it, I feel like this would go in a pretty predictable direction:

        (1) Pay Artax a bonus for working through chemo (or whatever)
        (2) People (reasonably) complain that they’re doing the same work as Artax for less money
        (3) “We can’t afford to pay everyone a bonus just for doing their job!”
        (4) Decide that Artax is working through chemo already, so it can’t be that much of a hardship—no more bonus for Artax

        Optional (5): Artax attempts to seek actual accommodations and is rejected on the basis that the accommodations weren’t necessary when there was a bonus, so they must not be necessary now.

        Yeah, absolutely not.

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    6. LW4*

      WOW that’s bananas!

      As everyone is saying, I 100% should just not do the self sacrificing crap. In this case, it was because I’ve been feeling pressure to look extra “on” and engaged. I’m used to being a high performer and it’s anxiety-inducing to suddenly be unable to do some of the things that made me so. Anxiety wins out over physical pain sometimes.

      I do not boast about working through pain to my coworkers, and in every other situation at work I’ve accepted the help that has been offered. The $100 thing was just a joke, but I thought it would be interesting to hear how Alison thought it could play out.

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      1. I own one tenacious plant*

        I hope you stop putting yourself in pain! I get wanting to maintain your professional appearances, I bet you worked hard to get where you are. However I also bet that you wouldn’t want any of your coworkers to be in pain to keep up appearances, so don’t expect it of yourself. You can always turn on the camera, say hi and explain you will be keeping your camera off for this meeting. Full stop. No explanation required. Then you can recline in peace and it will be better for everyone.

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    7. Anon for this*

      To be clear, what’s wild to me isn’t that they wanted a doctor’s note. it’s that the accomodation they were willing to give me WITHOUT one was a paid day of leave, taking me at my word that it would indeed literally make me sick and deciding that was acceptable.

      they also had changed a policy very very very last minute, and prior to the policy change, I did not need an official accomodation for the request, and it literally would lose them money to remove the accomodation that was already in place. getting a doctor’s note with less than 2 weeks notice is HARD

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    8. Laser99*

      I can’t even write about this very well because it makes me so angry. “Special treatment”….like, yeah, it sure is worth miserable pain for that sweet sweet handicapped parking spot for my car! (I don’t actually have one myself, I don’t need it yet, I become enraged on behalf of my disabled crew.)

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  2. MassMatt*

    #1 hits on a really terrible and IMO pervasive mindset when it comes to evaluations. I also had a high-functioning team. It wasn’t just my ego saying this, it was a sales and heavily QC’d business and my team was consistently outperforming the others in the department.

    It was extremely frustrating that I could not reward them or even officially acknowledge their accomplishments because of this extremely artificial and arbitrary bell curve. The average score (out of 5) could only be slightly over 3–meets expectations. The two lower grades were essentially never used except for someone on a PIP. The highest grade was described as (I wish I were kidding) “Like getting a Nobel Prize”. So that left only 2 grades, and one of them was artificially forced to be unusual if not rare.

    I believed, and made the case to no avail, that this was enforcing not a culture of excellence (as all the posters in our break room extolled) but of mediocrity. Poor performers and great performers were basically rated the same and rewarded the same as mediocre ones, and as it sunk in that excellence had no meaning there, great employees left.

    As I did, shortly after I learned that one of the “excellent” ratings went to the person heading the department that lost so much money (due to carelessness and incompetence) that bonuses throughout the region were cancelled for the year.

    I’m afraid I don’t have good specific advice, except echoing Alison and be honest about the shortcomings of the grading system. Good people may decide to leave, but better they make moves to improve their careers than continue hoping things will change where they are.

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    1. A mess*

      Our company recently changed the rating system to a 5 grade scale as described and grade 5 only to used if you are material for immediate promotion (or a Nobel prize). I hate it and it doesn’t make any sense to tell me “3” is an excellent result, when it is right in the mediocre middle of the scale! It’s a mess.

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      1. Sloanicota*

        I think that’s fine, not great, as long as 3 still gets a nice bonus (in a bonus system) and doesn’t make them ineligible for raises or whatever. If you can articulate what a 4 would look like, and mean it, and be able to actually award it, then I guess I don’t care if a great performer is called a 3. But so often, a company combines that “average is good, most people should be 3s” mindset with the “only 4s can get a raise/promotion/bonus” mindset, and then I’m out. Then they’re just trying to disguise the fact that they don’t give raises or bonuses and gaslighting the employees that it’s because of their performance.

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        1. Hlao-roo*

          The companies I have worked for use that kind of rating system (most people get 3s and you are still eligible for decent raises/bonuses with a 3 rating), and I agree that it’s a fine-but-not-great system.

          Also agree that pairing “most people get 3s” with “only 4s can get a raise/promotion/bonus” would have me updating my resume and applying to other jobs! Luckily I haven’t encountered that situation so far in my career.

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          1. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

            Yeah, I full-stop don’t believe in bell curves for performance assessments, and I think solid “meets expectations” performers should be eligible for solid raises routinely, promotions when they’re doing higher-level work (at the “meets expectations” level), and bonuses when they have a specific accomplishment to justify them.

            And – I’ve seen so many people get frustrated with ratings of a “3” or a “meets expectations”, because they read it as like a “C” in school. But in most jobs I’ve worked, it’s more like a B+. You’re doing everything you need to do to succeed in your job and doing it well, that’s great! You just didn’t deliver something significantly above and beyond your goals, and that’s ok – you weren’t expected to. A “3” isn’t criticism, it’s just “you did what you were supposed to do.”

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            1. WantonSeedStitch*

              Yeah, we have a three-rating system where I work, and it’s expected that the low rating is for people who likely need to be put on a PIP. The high rating is for people who have really gone above and beyond the requirements of their role. The middle rating is for people who are doing their job perfectly well. If you’re in the middle, you get a raise. For someone who’s up at the higher end of the middle, according to their manager, we can usually do a slightly higher raise. For someone who’s at the lower end of the middle (mediocre performance but not such that they would need a PIP), they’ll get a lower raise.

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            2. MigraineMonth*

              I think that using a bell curve for performance assessments makes sense if your employees are a randomly-selected cross-section of the population (and you have a very large number of them). The minute you start messing with that by, say, hiring the most qualified applicants or firing poor performers, you no longer have a bell curve!

              I worked at one of those companies where every year they fired everyone in a particular start year who performed in the bottom 10%, and after 7 years they were firing some pretty solid employees.

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          2. JustaTech*

            I’m in the ““most people get 3s” with “only 4s can get a raise/promotion/bonus” ” space and it sucks. Only 2 people in my department were allowed to get a 4 this year, even though a bunch of people did amazing work, and you have to get a 4 two years in a row to get a promotion.
            I’ve only gotten my last two promotions by subtly threatening to quit when I was the only SME. In hindsight I absolutely should have quit rather than take the most recent promotion.

            What’s really upsetting is that none of the people I work with are slackers! If you gave them praise and raises or bonuses or treated them like adults they would be out there kicking ass all over the place. As it is we get yelled at for wanting flex time for coming in on the weekends and not wanting to work 9 hour days for no reason.
            A lot of people are sitting back hard into “work your wage” and I don’t have any argument against it.

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        2. Don’t know what to call myself*

          I’m in local government, so raises and promotions are rare. One of the only real tools we have to reward excelling employees is the good feeling they get when they get a good evaluation.

          Which is why when my last job went to a rating system like the one described at the top of this thread, so many people were angry and demoralized. We already knew we weren’t getting raises, and most of the higher up positions in our department were filled by people who were planning to stay until the end of their careers, so the odds of getting promoted were slim, and now you couldn’t even get a written compliment from your boss for all the hard work you were doing.

          I literally heard one of my coworkers say “if I cover shifts for everyone who calls out sick and do four extra projects, I get the same rating as somebody who’s late for work three times a week and never volunteers for anything, so what’s even the point?”

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          1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

            I tested this theory in consecutive years.

            After busting a gut, going to my review with the numbers showing that I was directly earning the firm money (despite being nominally a cost centre), and getting COL only, I worked to rule.

            After the second year I got the same pay rise. I realised I would never progress there, either within the role or upwards, and mentally checked out from that day.

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          2. MassMatt*

            This is exactly the problem; forced bell curves enforce a culture of mediocrity. We lost some good people, and underperformers who did the bare minimum just coasted along.

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          3. Alan*

            I used to teach community college at night for extra money and encountered this same issue in that environment. In my day job, raises and promotions were tied to performance, but in teaching, they just look up your education and experience on a matrix to get your salary, and then everyone advances in lockstep each year. I would spend half an hour per student grading homework and making comments, while other instructors would just glance at it and put a check mark at the top, and we got paid the same. It was weird but it seemed like doing anything less was shortchanging my students.

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            1. Lionheart*

              that’s how every teaching job I’ve ever had worked, and I’m OK with that. it’s very difficult to quantify the extra work that teachers put in. Better to just hold teachers accountable to their job description; aka you’re required to give meaningful feedback to students 2 weeks after every assessment, and if you don’t meet that expectation it’s a performance issue / PIP.

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              1. Alan*

                My experience (from student feedback) was that other instructors did *not* give meaningful feedback and there was no consequence. The administration really had no insight into instructor performance except for student evaluation forms, and they didn’t seem to pay much attention to those. The chair of my department would just hand them back to the instructors. I enjoyed teaching, the money was actually good and needed, but it was a tremendous amount of work, and just very different from my day job in terms of evaluation and compensation.

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          4. Lydia*

            I work in local government, too, and we get raises every year on top of our COL increases. However, once you reach the top of your pay band, you only get COL increases without a promotion. Which is still better than working for a federal contractor where not only was the pay really bad, but pay increases were not guaranteed every year, even when you did well, and the COL increases were negligible. When I left that job for my current job, I immediately got a 50% increase in pay just by leaving.

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        3. Another Kristin*

          I remember this about a million years ago in a student job at Starbucks, there was a similar rating system – you COULD get a 5, but only if you, IDK, stopped a robbery in progress and ran the store singlehanded for 36 hours in a snowsrotm. Ordinary good performance got you a 3, which when I got it entitled me to a raise of a whopping 17 cents per hour!

          I’m all for normalizing the 3-star review for, like, a trip to the hardware store – most things don’t NEED to be better than just OK – but it feels like a bait-and-switch when a company tells you “big raise for excellent performance!” and the bar for excellent performance is “combines the qualities of a genius and a saint”.

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          1. RVA Cat*

            The five-star rating is starting to sound like the military medals that are usually awarded…posthumously.

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        4. Highered*

          I’m so glad to take this opportunity to remember the 1-5 rating system where nearly everyone was supposed to receive a 2. So much time and energy was spent telling us that a 2 was “actually really good” and a 5 was basically never given “unless you donated a kidney to the college president.”

          Of course, this was in higher education, so no matter what rating you got it was really exciting to get an increase in pay that covered rising inflation- like 3 percent was great. Most people got 2 percent. And it was carefully noted that this was all “merit based.”

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          1. MigraineMonth*

            I know this isn’t the point, but that’s a horrifying example of excellent performance/going above and beyond at your job. “Yes, your students nominated you for multiple awards and you managed to publish on top of a full teaching load, but here at [higher ed institution] what we’re really looking for is people who will donate their organs specifically to the deans or presidents.”

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    2. DistantAudacity*

      I used to work in a system like this (big global consulting), and was also part of the evaluation teams (including recommendations for allocating bonuses and raises).

      The way we handled it was by being extremely transparent that this was How The System Works. We’re not going to be able to change it.

      We alse then tried to, as far as possible, use the additional bonus taggings available to us to compensate were we could, and as a way to acknowledge to people that we saw their quality of work. In addition, we of course did our utmost to support those that were up for promotions and so forth.

      But transparency was always key, so that people were not blindsided by it and understood how it worked.

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    3. Everdene*

      My husbands former company had an evaluation process and curve like this, and bonuses/raises were linked to your score. At the time this story takes place he had consistently recieved excellent reviews for over a decade and scored many ‘4’s and was in the Senior Taco Assessment Team where he only assessed tacos for wealthy/high profile clients…

      Yr 1, covid, everyone gets a 3.

      Yr 2, he gets a grade 3. Due to team leader movement the STAT had 3 managers and between them they had not fully documented his achievements (his notes were discounted) and so could not evidence more than a 3. He was a bit frustrated.

      Yr 3, he gets a grade 3. His manager had put him as a 4 but on the curve grading this was changed to a 3 as too many STAT members had been put forward for excellent work.

      Yr 3.25 he resigns, taking a job with a company that assesses the Taco assessors. His grand boss calls and tries to get him to stay: “But we are about to implement changes that will have all of the STAT working in the way you do as you produce excellent results!” Husband asks “If my way of working is so good why have I had 3s for 3 successive years?”

      He is ridiculously happy in his new company. He he well appreciated and renumerated. He will shortly be returning to his old company to assess their Taco assessments. He knows lots of people from that company but all the high performers have moved on and the system remains rewarding mediocrity.

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      1. Rogue Slime Mold*

        Gotta love how I started reading this and immediately predicted “And so he left, and they were absolutely shocked.”

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    4. Mentally Spicy*

      A previous company I worked for had a five grade system. 1 was never used (I think you have had to, I dunno, set the building on fire to get a 1), and 5 was completely unachievable because no-one could ever establish what you would have to do to achieve it. I had meetings with HR where I would ask “can you give me an example of the sort of thing that would lead to a 5? What would that look like?” And they could never answer that, except in vague “we’ll know it when see it” terms. So essentially they had a three grade system. But because 4 was the highest anyone could achieve, no-one ever got raises or promotions because technically no-one was achieving the highest grade.

      There’s a reason why I’m freelance these days!

      Reply ↓
      1. JustaTech*

        This is one of the things I’ve seen that I like about Big Tech. My spouse is a manager in Big Tech and the way he talks about people’s ranks and ratings I’m just blown away by how clearly they are defined. And that the ratings are defined for each rank! Like, what gets an “greatly exceeds expectations” for a level 3 is a “meets most expectations” for a level 7.

        At my company it is incredibly vague, to the point that they can say everyone gets a 3 because the description of a 4 is so vague, and a 5 is basically undefined, ’cause you ain’t getting it anyway.

        Reply ↓
    5. Hotdog not dog*

      I hate that this system is so prevalent! There was one year at Old Job when I won an internal award for outstanding performance (they actually did call it Employee of the Year) and still got a 4 out of 5, because “nobody really gets a 5.” The way they framed it, if you get a 1 you’ve already been fired, 2 you’re on a PIP, 3 you’re adequate, 4 you’re very good, and 5 you’re the Messiah riding in on a unicorn. Managers were required to have no more than one 4 and at least one 2, so the reality was that almost everyone got a meaningless 3. Raises, bonuses, and promotions were based on the stacked ranking, so it sucked even worse.

      Reply ↓
      1. Mutually Supportive*

        And you HAVE to have someone who appears to be under performing, even if they’re just the “least excellent” in a team of excellent people!?

        That’s nuts.

        Reply ↓
        1. NotAnotherManager!*

          It is an excellent way to drive away strong performers, too. They’re more likely to have other options.

          Reply ↓
      2. Leenie*

        The requiring at least one 2 is particularly weird. What functional organization would have at least one person on a PIP on every single team?

        Reply ↓
    6. Sloanicota*

      Yeah, I think one of my frustrations with crappy systems like this are … somehow, the jerk guy STILL manages to get one of those rare, “nobody gets this” scores. It so often ends up feeling like there’s two tracks, the “sucker” track for people who work hard and play by the rules, and the inside track. Your boss tells you there’s only ONE possible 4 for the entire department of 20 people, but then you realize the sales team all got 5s, or whatever.

      Reply ↓
      1. GrumpyPenguin*

        I’ve also had many teachers who used this system, mostly in liberal arts. Once you realize that you can’t better grades no matter how much work you put into it, you just stop trying und only do the bare minimum required to pass. Even when you have good grades you’ll start wondering if you only get them because others have to fail.

        Reply ↓
        1. Irish Teacher.*

          As a teacher, this is really irritating me about the CBA (Classroom Based Assessment) grades. There are only three passing grades and the top is suppose to be a real unicorn, only-given-to-maybe-one-student in a class of 20 sort of thing. So I had a student who worked really hard, on his own and did a great assignment but it didn’t quite hit the criteria for that (out of 5 criteria, it would have hit that top grade on two, but not on the other three, where it would have fallen slightly short) and that kid gets one grade higher than the kids who barely scraped a pass and that with a fair amount of direction from me.

          Like…what is the incentive for that kid to continue putting in that level of work if…doing the bare minimum only means a drop of one grade?

          (The grading criteria are set nationally and all kids in the country are supposed to be assessed by the same rubrics.)

          Reply ↓
      2. 2 Cents*

        I always felt like I was on the sucker track. It took a very long time to realize that more work/working better didn’t equal pay raises. So I stopped as much as my Type A personality would allow. I’m freelance, and it’s so much better now, as the only person I have to appease is myself :D

        Reply ↓
    7. karstmama*

      i got a 3 once and said ‘if i’m your C employee, who are your A employees??’ it made me so mad i turned in my resignation that afternoon. total demotivation.

      Reply ↓
    8. Antilles*

      I believed, and made the case to no avail, that this was enforcing not a culture of excellence (as all the posters in our break room extolled) but of mediocrity.
      Ironically, mediocrity is actually one of the better outcomes of this sort of ranking. The worse result is “active toxicity” and politicking. Consider the (sadly common) system where managers are forced to give out one bad grade no matter what and are only allowed to give out on excellent grade.
      On the top end, with only a small percentage of top grades available, the logical result is that your best performers should be trying to undercut other top performers. They should avoid working on project teams with other great employees who might outshine you. They should focus on task that look good, even if other lower-profile tasks are more important to the company.
      But for more average performers, the logical goal is to make sure you’re never the worst performer. Is a fellow employee struggling? Great! If not, is there any way you can subtly sabotage a teammate so they trip up?

      Reply ↓
      1. MigraineMonth*

        I worked at a company where we had stacked rankings that determined who was fired (sorry, “strongly encouraged to resign”) for performance each year, and your performance was determined by how many bugs you’d written/failed to catch during review. If you could prove that the bug had been caused by someone else, you could move that hit to their stats. Since most bugs have multiple causes, this led to quite a lot of developers throwing each other under the bus, with the QA people caught in the crossfire. I turned into a pretty toxic and unpleasant coworker while I was at that company.

        Reply ↓
    9. Bumblebee*

      I am in exactly the same position! One of my same-level colleagues (we’re sort of mid-leadership level with teams under us) even takes the position that if you do get a 5 this year, then next year your “5” performance becomes your “3” performance, so if you do better you get graded more harshly. This doesn’t seem fair to me but anything I raise, I feel like I get labelled a slacker who doesn’t have high standards for her team.

      Reply ↓
    10. AF Vet*

      I’ve seen the other side of this coin, and it wasn’t any prettier. In the Air Force, everyone is rated on the 5 scale, too. For the longest time, if you didn’t get “Firewall 5s” – or 5 in EVERY category, then you were a schmuck.. or your leadership had an axe to grind. If you got a 4, you weren’t getting a promotion any time soon. You got a 3? You’re probably getting out soon. Lower? You just got busted for something (most likely drugs) and are already going through the process to dishonorable discharge you. This is just one of your last pieces of paperwork.

      They’ve tried making it more realistic – grade solid work solidly, acknowledge room for growth, etc. Every system they implement eventually leads to Firewall 5 or Bust! Even giving the wing leadership – usually in charge of a few thousand people – 50 total 5s to give leads to “murder boards.” That’s where commanders get together to decide who is worthy of the 3-5 5s they can give. It does become politics, although there are always workarounds. “SSgt Snuffy is my 3 of 10 Junior NCOs. Promote immediately!” usually means you’re lucky enough to have 3 solid rock stars, and only 2 5s to give.

      Reply ↓
      1. Not a Vorpatril*

        Yup. And they try to train up new officers to not give firewall 5s, so when you give your first ratings you tend to (at least in my experience) get a really pissed off NCO who then politely explains that you are actively murdering their career if that goes live, and could you please change it.

        At that point, it becomes a penmanship challenge, trying to use the bullet points (you get 10 lines, if I recall correctly) where you fit in exactly 10 bullets of what outstanding things your subordinate did, using up as much of the white space as possible, while doing your best to avoid repetition in phrasing/words of glowing praise. Maybe you could stretch one bullet into two lines, but that had better align with saving the force something considerable (lives, equipment, massive money, etc)

        Reply ↓
        1. AF Vet*

          Yup! It’s changed a little in the past round of edits, but the whole Action-Impact-Result formula and no white space games live on. At least now we can actually write like normal humans, so people not in our career field niche can understand what we do.

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    11. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      Exactly what I was thinking. This team knows there is little chance of promotion and are okay with it. Which yeah, not everyone wants to be promoted. But that means then things like being seen as a strong performer are the motivators (especially if tied to raises). Take that motivator away and you have nothing.

      good people will leave for where their work is appreciated and rewarded.

      Reply ↓
    12. TGIF*

      We have that ridiculous system here too and it drives me crazy. I don’t even remember these yearly reviews being a thing until after the year 2000, and now it’s bullshit. I am at my job on time or early every single day, I get all my work done every day, and I help others and work with others to get things accomplished. I have called out sick maybe twice in 5 years. I can’t get anything above a “meets expectations” when it should be excel in my opinion. Why even have it there if it’s not being used? it’s silly.

      Reply ↓
    13. No Longer Gig-less Data Analyst*

      “Poor performers and great performers were basically rated the same and rewarded the same as mediocre ones, and as it sunk in that excellence had no meaning there, great employees left.”

      OMG, this. A former company of mine had a sliding scale of 2% for merit raises. I was a newer hire and was absolutely knocking it out of the park, while there were several others in the department who had been there for years and bragged about doing the bare minimum. When I inquired if there was any way to get more than 2% based on some hard metrics that I had achieved, my boss said that I would be getting the max 2% and didn’t understand why that upset me. I told her “So what you’re saying is that the difference between me and someone who comes in every day to basically breathe in and out is only 2%. Is that correct?”

      There was a lot of sputtering and mumbling that I should reframe my thinking on that, lol. But yeah, it pissed me off that no matter how much I excelled I would never get more than a 2% raise. I refused to call it a merit raise and just referred to it as a COL raise whenever the topic came up, just to be petty.

      Reply ↓
      1. mlem*

        Yeah, I call my company’s “merit” raises “not-even-COLA adjustments” because … they’re not even at COLA levels most years, for the TOP performers!

        Reply ↓
    14. Just drinking my coffee*

      My work does this too. From what I understand, it’s coming from a bunch of years where there were a ton of 4s and 5s and so it seemed inflated? So now HR says your average should really be around 3, and 3 is “doing your job, doing it well, but not doing anything extra.” I’ve never personally heard of a person getting a 5 but in all fairness, I’m on a small team. I got a 4 last year and was pretty excited about it lol.

      No one really cares THAT much because our annual raise amounts aren’t tied to a specific score. You have to get a 3 to get the raise at all (I think), but other than that, getting a 4 or 5 makes no difference to it.

      I do SO much more than my typical job would expect, so I do expect to get 4s and 5s personally.

      Reply ↓
      1. Opaline*

        Do you work at my company? This is how my workplace does it too, with the addition that 5’s are pretty much impossible. My manager tried to go to bad for a team member to get a 5 last year, but HR shot it down – the team member had been named as Employee of the Year, was basically functioning as assistant manager despite not having the job title, and was working so much overtime they got signed off for two much due to stress afterwards.

        The rest of us stopped trying so hard to reach that 5 once we found out even *that* wasn’t enough! But even if it was, it only gets you an extra few hundred on your bonus (nice, but not worth working yourself into a nervous breakdown).

        Reply ↓
    15. Crepe Myrtle*

      Yeah, I’ve heard the only way to get a 5 at my place is to save the company six figures or more that year.

      Reply ↓
      1. JustaTech*

        I did that one year. (By doing a thing that started as a side project because I was bored because COVID.) I got an email from the CEO thanking me and a $100 Amazon card.
        I can’t believe I stayed.

        Reply ↓
    16. Na$ty Larry*

      My company has a similar system where Excellent was only allowed for 2 team members last year, despite half of our team earning a promotion. I had to tell one of my direct reports that even though we wanted to rate him Excellent we were limited by that rule and even though he understood, I could tell it hurt him (and unfortunately I had to tell him this knowing I was one of the 2 who received the elusive Excellent rating). This year I’ve told my own managers that if I’m being considered for Excellent that they should give it to him instead.

      My company also has this absolutely terrible rule that if you started within 6 months of your current role you have to get a “Keep Improving” rating which absolutely sucks and is incredibly demotivating. Every manager I know has been pushing back on this rule extremely hard for a couple of years and I think the pushback is finally getting some traction. Which is to say, maybe LW and her peers can team up to try to get this changed.

      Reply ↓
      1. Opaline*

        My place does the “needs improvement” grade if you’re within the first year of a new role, but combo it with 5s only technically being available if you performed so well you got promoted… a role you’re now “improving” at, so it cancels out.

        Reply ↓
        1. Na$ty Larry*

          That’s exactly how it is at my company too. In my group, we generally expect someone to be already working at the level they’re going to be promoted to before we’re comfortable promoting them, so it’s a huge kick in the knees to then be required to give them a subpar score when we know they’re already performing well in the role!!

          Reply ↓
    17. juliebulie*

      My employer does this too. In fact, I’ve had several employers that did this, so I imagine it’s not rare in the tech sector.

      They make a big deal about “excellence” but only one person per team is credited for excellence.

      If your team is full of deadbeats, you still get to hand out an Excellent/Outstanding/Superior to somebody. It’s bonkers.

      Reply ↓
    18. Beth*

      You can tell your grandboss that treating exceptional employees like this is a direct route to losing them to your competitors. Just ask Microsoft. Remember when they had highly motivated employees who were the best in the business? Who they then drove out with their psycho ranking system?

      Reply ↓
      1. Bitte Meddler*

        I worked there during the psycho ranking system. In my department, Inside Sales, the bottom 10% were cut every single quarter. And the ranking was over only the most recent quarter, not your entire performance. One bad quarter — a slow-closing contract, illness, whatever — and you lost your job.

        And a “bad” quarter could be one where you hit your sales quota, but your team members beat theirs by a few dollars. Pack your cube and get out.

        Reply ↓
    19. Sans Serif*

      Every place I worked was like that. Once in my life (about 10 years ago) I got a 5 because I took on a year long project that was way outside the scope of my normal work (and still did all my normal work). It was a high profile project and was very successful. And it’s nice I got a 5 but my raise was only 2% higher than I would have gotten for “meets expectations”. Where is the incentive to do anything more than the minimum???

      Reply ↓
    20. Bitte Meddler*

      At my last company, the saying was, “Only the CEO is eligible for a 5.”

      At my current company, they have a set number of people who can get anything above a 3 (meets expectations) and it’s really small, like 10-15% of all global employees. So if the C-suite doesn’t think anyone in a specific department (or entire subsidiary) is deserving of a 4 or 5, then everyone in that area gets a 3.

      Our “merit” raises are tied to that rating.

      Reply ↓
    21. aunttora*

      At my company, apparently the managers go into a “compensation meeting” and horse trade – “your group got an exceptional last year, so this year I get it for one of my reports”. (Learned this from a friend who was promoted into the manager group – not my manager.) A few years back I had really put my all into performance for the year, and then got the usual “meets” and crummy raise, because it wasn’t my department’s turn. I stopped caring about any of that nonsense at that point, and just adjusted my effort to meet expectations, and no more than that. This year I had a couple of weird unsolicited conversations with my boss and grandboss regarding how I should construct my self-evaluation and the rest of the mishegoss for this year, leading me to believe it might be my department’s turn? But it’s too late, I’d rather just take the “meets” and not participate in this infuriating process.

      Reply ↓
  3. Bruce (not that Bruce the other Bruce)*

    LW4: It is the norm in my team to not have cameras on in online meetings, this extends up to my boss’s boss. So being on camera for calls could be seen as optional…

    Reply ↓
      1. I should really pick a name*

        It IS optional for the LW.

        This isn’t strictly required, but it certainly contributes positively to the client relationship.

        Reply ↓
        1. Sloanicota*

          I wonder if LW can do what my current boss sometimes does, and START cameras on so the client can see the friendly professional face, but then note that they’re going to turn cameras off shortly for whatever reason, and thus ensure they don’t end up sitting for more than a few minutes?

          Reply ↓
            1. Another Kristin*

              that’s what I always say! Especially in a big meeting, a bit of face time in the beginning and turning your camera on when you speak lets you get away with a lot more camera off time in between.

              Reply ↓
          2. Bruce (not that Bruce the other Bruce)*

            That is a good suggestion, if the LW really thinks some face time is needed. Maybe they can figure out a way to make the background of their home set-up more neutral (some people use a generated background, for example)

            Reply ↓
    2. Smithy*

      I think the challenge for this is that the OP talks about being on-camera for external facing/client meetings.

      I think the problem with saying it’s ok for no cameras with external/client meetings is that it’s far harder for the employer/team to control the impact of going no-camera. If certain clients or industries respond more positively to camera-on, there’s just only so much that can be controlled internally.

      That being said, I do think that the OP may be defaulting to being on camera because they see that as the simplest way to have that positive client interaction (replying on body language, perceived eye contact, etc.). Stretching themselves to improve/increase their skills relying on just their voice, screen sharing, and the chat box may be an area to seek to invest in? Basically what are other tools to increase that personal touch without relying on body language from being on camera.

      Reply ↓
    1. bamcheeks*

      I was thinking that. Here is some feedback you quite clearly have!

      BUT the other part of this is trust. Your boss is soliciting feedback — almost harassing you for feedback — when he hasn’t actually built up the trust to show that you can give critical feedback without experiencing repercussions. It’s very sensible for you to be wary in that situation! You might want to find a diplomatic way of addressing that head-on, but it’s extremely reasonable to choose not to take that risk and to give non-answers until you’re confident that offering critical feedback will have a positive outcome (which may be never, if your boss isn’t good at taking it!)

      Reply ↓
    3. Rex Libris*

      I was just thinking “The frequency of these meetings is counterproductive.” is perfectly valid constructive criticism.

      Reply ↓
  5. Meeting with friends*

    #3: Your boss is retired now and there are no reasons to treat these meetings like business meetings where it is about who initiated or who is asking a favour. Why not handle it like meeting a friend, which (for me) would be splitting bills or each person paying for themselves.
    And if you don’t want/ can’t spend the money, choose a different activity.

    Reply ↓
    1. Mutually Supportive*

      I agree, I’d probably go for roughly taking it in turns, as long as the venue is within a sensible price

      Reply ↓
    2. Tippy*

      Agree. If the goal is friendship , and per the letter it is, then treat the lunch like you do every other friendship.

      Reply ↓
    3. OP3*

      OP #3 here – this is a good point, I haven’t quite broken out of the “manager/employee” relationship mindset yet! Also, I didn’t think to include this in the letter, but my former boss has very specific dietary preferences and the places they like to eat are definitely out of my normal price range. Maybe instead of always doing lunch, I’ll suggest alternating with coffee meet-ups, and offer to pick up the tab for those!

      Reply ↓
      1. Area Woman*

        I have to disagree… Let them buy you lunch! I consider it a pay-it-forward scenario. When you are late in life with extra cash, pick up the lunch and mentor someone. Alison’s suggestion to occasionally offer (just to confirm it is their intention to pay) is good.

        I have friends and family who are teachers/SAHMs/caregivers/early career/etc. I never let them pay if I can help it, especially especially if I pick where we go. It is fine if they offer every once and a while, but I make 3 to 5x what they do and I benefit from the lunch more than the cost of their sandwich/cocktail.

        Reply ↓
        1. BayesianByDefault*

          I agree! I love treating people now that I’m in a position to afford it. I say follow Alison’s advice of offering every few times but probably letting them get the good feels from paying that kindness forward is more valuable to them than the cost of the gluten free pizza they made you eat (kidding, but you know what I mean!)

          Reply ↓
    4. Rosa*

      #4 I’m impressed (and intrigued) that they can manage to work while flat- can’t be that many jobs where it’s possible. I agree with Alison, presumably the business has funded considerable costs already to facilitate this so asking to not have a camera on seems like something they’d agree to.

      Reply ↓
  6. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

    #1, your company has put you in a no-win situation. There is no way to talk about this with your employees that will not demotivate them. Given that, I would at least choose integrity and honesty about what is going on, as Alison suggests.

    From my own personal experience with a situation like this, I did indeed stop trying so hard as I perceived there being no point to it. I still met expectations, but had no incentive to try to excel anymore. But I at least respected my manager’s honesty about the rating system. It would have been much worse if my manager had blown smoke and given me false hope that excelling actually was likely to be rewarded.

    The org is setting you up for a team that settles into “good enough” rather than excelling since there is little reason to excel.

    Reply ↓
    1. allathian*

      Indeed, and the best employees will start looking elsewhere.

      It will tank morale, people’s motivation will suffer, and instead of a collaborative environment where employees help each other achieve the best result there’s going to be unnecessary competition. Ultimately profits will suffer when everyone’s only looking out for number one. Is that really what the C-suite wants?

      I’ve been denied merit raises for budgetary reasons, and it’s demotivating. That said, at the time the whole department was in the same boat, nobody got any raises.

      Reply ↓
    2. LuckyPurpleSocks*

      My large employer is in the 2nd year of merit raises based on ranked employee evaluations where no one can get the highest rank (5). My supervisor has always been clear with us on how this system works and that she dislikes it, but that’s the way it is. Last year was my “turn” to have a higher ranking/raise, and this year I got a lower ranking/raise so someone else could get a higher one. Everyone on my team is awesome, we all support each other, work hard, and strive for excellence because that’s how we are as professionals, so this new system is super demoralizing.

      Reply ↓
      1. Sloanicota*

        This is exactly how my old boss always handled it. “As you know, every year I can only get a big bonus for one person. You had a good year, but I’m going to give it to Todd this year because he’s been killing it on X and Y. But next year, I’ll make sure it’s your year if you keep up this level of performance.” And then she did. It helped that everyone got at least a COLA/small bonus. And that we weren’t a competitive team. I remember walking out thinking, “yeah, Todd really did kill it on X and Y.”

        Reply ↓
      2. AF Vet*

        That’s how my old unit treated certain accolades. “Hey, you rocked it but Joe is going up for a promotion board, so I’m giving him the 5. I’m still in command next year, so you’ll get the 5 then to show your own promotion board.” Maintaining excellence was understood. :)

        Reply ↓
      3. Lauren H.*

        That’s great that your boss was so transparent and that it worked for your team. I remember my first boss saying in the interview something along the lines of “this is a skill building roll, when you’re ready to take what you’ve built here and move up to the next thing I’ll help you do that.” It was a super small office so it made sense there wasn’t going to be room for promotion and I appreciated her being up front about that. If I were on your team, LW1, I would want you to tell me “this is the system, I don’t like it and have pushed back as I feel I can, but it’s what we have right now. I’m advocating for XYZ to try and make things a bit better, but If you decide at some point you want to move somewhere with more upward mobility options, I will support you in those efforts.”

        Reply ↓
    3. Palmer*

      I feel like the correct response to #1 is to say “I can understand the desire to evaluate our team’s performance, but this method is going to heavily undermine that performance in a way that I must object to.”

      Then linking to many of the various resources talking about why stack ranking is bad, to how Microsoft ditched it because when applied broadly it heavily undermined their business.

      “This proposed system needs significant revisions otherwise it risks pitting our excellent team members against one another in a way that will diminish our business deliverables and timelines. This system will also create a pressure on managers to find critique with otherwise excellent work in order to rank down some contributors. That wastes multiple people’s time and focus. Ultimately this system gives bad feedback and undermine morale. In those cases it will drive our knowledge experts and most qualified individuals to seek employment with our competitors. It took to build and invest in this team, I think we can revise the system to not undermine that costly investment.”

      Definitely don’t tell management that you’ll be frank with your team about the bad system. They’ll most likely want to shoot the messenger.

      The smartest move is probably talking to other managers to collect a larger opposition which will be more likely to overturn this sort of bad system.
      The largest power move would be for many managers to actively protesting by refusing to do the ranking, as it actively harms high performing teams long term. Another approach would be to put everyone at the highest rank they allow. The system doesn’t sound to be true stack ranking at least.

      Reply ↓
  7. misspiggy*

    LW4: I’m similar, and I start client facing calls on camera just for introductions. When introducing myself I say that disability makes it difficult for me to stay on camera, so I’ll be off for the rest of the call. Having a profile picture up is a good idea.

    Reply ↓
  8. Cat on the Keyboard*

    #4 Is there any way you can stage it so that you are laying down on a Zoom call but it doesn’t look like you are?

    If you’re committed to being on camera, sitting up when it causes you such pain is not great in the short or long term. How are you not distracted from the call by the pain you are feeling? And how much does this small action set you back in any possible recovery?

    Since you have to be flat on your back, this may be easier than if you were propped up on pillows. It may be simplest to lie down on a green screen so that you can use the background feature, and then rearrange your hair so it doesn’t look like you’re laying down. I assume that you already have a way to hold your computer over your head, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange the camera appropriately above you.

    If you can’t make it work to lie down and still be on camera, I think you should rethink how much it benefits your clients to be on camera at all. It really isn’t respectful to them for you to be distracted by pain both during and after the call (and probably before in anticipation), and they may be horrified to know how much it costs you.

    Reply ↓
    1. LW4*

      I genuinely appreciate your advice, but I’m also laughing at the idea of a lying down green screen. That’s creative! But no, no overhead setup.

      I’ve discovered throughout the experience with this injury that I’m extremely good at masking pain (no wonder, I have a few AuADHD markers but no official diagnosis). Based on feedback after the call I really knocked it out of the park, but I was barely holding in my reaction by the end. Alison and everyone else are right of course that I simply should not put myself through that when I DO have the option to be camera off. I’ve just felt pressure lately to present as extra “on” and engaged, so if I could physically get through a call and deal with the consequences in private, it felt like a trade I was willing to take.

      I won’t be doing it again. Not worth it. Ow.

      Reply ↓
      1. Cat on the Keyboard*

        I am so relieved to hear this was a one-off and not a regular thing.

        Do you think you might be feeling pressure to be extra engaged due to your injury? Like you might be overcompensating for having to have special accommodations so that your job doesn’t think you’re too much hassle? If so, and you have a good supervisor, it might help to have a frank talk with them about how you can be an active team member in other ways.

        Reply ↓
        1. LW4*

          Yuuuuppp, this jokey hypothetical has turned into some hard reflection about why I’ve been putting myself through the pain like I have. I really thought I was on the ball about prioritizing my health over my work, but recovery isn’t a straight line…

          I have been active in plenty of other ways. I’ve been mentoring new team members who are really cool and completely chill about me working in bed! I’ll even turn on my camera for them while in bed so they can see my kitty sleeping on my shoulder. Always a crowd pleaser.

          Reply ↓
  10. Beth**

    My company has the same system as #1 and it is indeed demotivating. Our current system has 4 ratings. The lowest is for people currently on a PIP. The next lowest is also underperforming and is supposed to be 10% of staff. Then there is the main category, which is supposed to be 80% of staff and the top category, which is the remaining 10%.

    In practice, underperformers tend to be on PIPs, so there are usually few people for the bottom category. HR has decreed that the top category can be no more than 2x the number of people in the underperformimg category.

    In my department of 40, there are never more that 1-2 underperformers, meaning maybe 4 people are allowed to be in the top category and the remainder are in the middle. The department head usually wants to put their PA in the top category, leaving 1-3 slots for everyone else. The remaining 35 people all go in the middle.

    There is also an unwritten policy in my department that no one is supposed to be in the top category 2 years in a row to spread it around (since there are usually more that 3 people ready for immediate promotion/meeting the description of the top category).

    Hundreds of person hours are spent each year for 85% of people to get an average rating.

    Luckily, our pay is no longer tied to performance ratings (though the problems with that could be their own post). But our small bonuses are.

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    1. Beth**

      I am a first line manager and our company is 6,000+ employees. No one likes the system other than the most senior managers, who have no incentive to change it. I am open with my staff about the system and my lack of control over it, but I don’t know how I could go about changing it.

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    2. Sloanicota*

      This is … fascinating in that it rewards and incentives managers to put people on PIPs, which I think is a feature not a bug – but I believe I recall that such companies end up deliberately hiring low performers so they can axe them every year and preserve their good people, which is clearly perverse incentives run amok. And I agree, under similar systems we have an unofficial-official rule that nobody will be the best two years in a row – or at least if somebody was, everybody else on the team would probably take it out on them or start trying to undermine them after that. Which is crappy.

      Reply ↓
      1. Great Frogs of Literature*

        I was thinking that it incentivizes keeping lower performers around, because then you can rate more people excellent. Also bizarre.

        Reply ↓
      2. MassMatt*

        Deliberately hiring underperformers would be really weird, given the cost of hiring etc. But companies do bizarre things all the time.

        Reply ↓
        1. Emmy Noether*

          It does happen with those companies that have a practice of actually firing the bottom 10% (or whatever number) every year. They’re hiring yearly anyway, so the effect is that managers who have a sense of loyalty hire people they plan on firing (so they can keep their core team). And that’s the best case, since the other way this goes is active sabotage within the team.

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          1. Meghan*

            I knew someone who was a manager in one of these companies, and he would be very open about this when hiring someone he planned to only keep for a year. It was so that he could keep his total operating budget up while adhering to the asinine company rule. Plenty of takers for one year’s worth of salary with basically no expectations other than minimum effort in exchange for a good referral at the end.

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  11. Llama Llama*

    In regards to 2, I have been in my career for 15 years. I still remember when I first started and my manager insisted I give her feedback weekly. I tried the suggested method above and my manager started pushing back in one of the meetings. So I told her something reluctantly and she got angry with me!

    She was a knowledgeable boss and could help with most issues but she was awful and that was my first encounter in a list of many as to why.

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    1. OP2*

      This is OP#2 and I did start off by gently teasing mine about his workaholic nature (like, “I noticed you were still checking emails over the weekend”) under the feedback section, but honestly after two mentions in a row (he also worked on vacation) a) it felt very disingenuous to me, as I really don’t care that much about his work habits and b) I’m pretty sure it was actually starting to bug him. So this week I’ll put “nothing” as suggested, and maybe by next week the fun will have worn off for him.

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      1. displaythisname*

        I think that your feedback here might have been on an odd topic – if he’s being a workahaulic, that’s something that largely affects him, and his manager could talk to him about it, but it would be an odd type of feedback to hear from his direct report. I think the feedback he wants is probably about things that affect you more directly, with some component that is within his control. (You could share feedback on how it affects you though, e.g. “It seems like you work a lot on weekends and vacation, and I’m worried that it may mean I’m also expected to work during my time off.”)

        More generally – I’d encourage you to give this a chance, but with some more expansive ideas about what types of feedback to share. All my best jobs have included frequent (often weekly!) 2-way feedback, because it creates opportunities for everyone to improve quickly, fix miscommunications, and address minor problems before they become major ones. I’ve found this to be even more valuable when someone is new to the role, as there are typically more blind spots between the two people that can be filled in with more communication. Here are some examples of the types of feedback that might be useful to both of you without generating tons of friction:
        -I could use more training on X before going ahead with this project.
        -I think the XYZ collaboration with [other team] is off to a rocky start and could use some of your time helping sort out the shared responsibilities.
        -Or go meta: I love that you’re interested in feedback. I’m finding this weekly feedback process kind of stressful because I’m not quite sure what you want. Can you share examples of things that would be useful for me to share?

        Reply ↓
        1. OP2*

          Maybe you’re right and I’ve been approaching it wrong. The questions on the form (after “weekly personal reflection”) are:
          2. feedback for boss (one success)
          3. feedback for boss (one area of improvement)

          And I feel like that prompt makes me feel like it’s some kind of personal thing they’re looking for, and I’m really struggling with what to put there.

          Reply ↓
          1. Wings*

            I would still go for something operational and concrete from the previous week. Something along the lines “Can you give me a bit more advance notice of X deadline going forward? I felt rushed” or “I could use your help in navigating Y” (where Y could be some odd office politics, unhelpful other team or whatnot).

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    2. Polly Hedron*

      Follow this model from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:

      “How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat in a low voice.
      “Not at all,” said Alice: “she’s so extremely–” Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on “–likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.”
      The Queen smiled and passed on.

      Reply ↓
  12. Professional_Lurker*

    For #1, all I could think of was Enron’s performance ranking system. I went through a hyperfixation period on that company’s story a few years ago, and *everything* I read went into detail about how toxic and counterproductive it was. Really, Enron sounded like hell to work for if you weren’t the ultimate frat dudebro with a ruthless streak a mile wide.

    Essentially, everyone was ranked 1-5, only so many 5’s could be given per department, and so many 1’s had to be assigned. 5’s got bonuses, 1’s got managed out. It led to massive competition, backstabbing, and a focus on flashy, immediate wins that got attention rather than serving the company’s long-term best interest. So what the executives were doing to ensure their stock bonuses, just at a lower level/scale.

    Reply ↓
    1. Sloanicota*

      Ha your last thought was exactly my thought. “Oh, like an exec who only cares about short-term returns.” Gee, I wonder what happens when you run a whole company like that from top to bottom …

      Reply ↓
      2. Professional_Lurker*

        The two books I remember best is “The Smartest Guys in the Room” by Bethany McLean (I think HBO turned that into a documentary or miniseries?) and “Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald. “24 Days” by Rebecca Smith and John R. Emshwiller (the reporters who broke the story for the WSJ) is also good, but definitely assumes you already know the players and basic narrative.

        I don’t know any podcasts on the subject (I think 2001-2002 was a bit early for that medium?) but at least the first two books are available as audiobooks.

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      3. CTT*

        Seconding Smartest Guys in the Room. There was a WSJ podcast called “Bad Bets” on it, but it was a little too high-level.

        Reply ↓
      4. Insert Clever Name Here*

        A couple of podcasts that touch on Enron:
        – 99%Invisibe “You’ve Got Enron Mail” – talks about how the emails from the company had and continue to have an impact on things like predictive text (this is a rebroadcast of a Brought To You By episode, but BTYB is not doing new podcasts so YMMV on finding it to listen to)
        – You’re Wrong About “Enron” – this one talks about how the “bad apples” theory obscured what was going on
        – American Scandal Season 10 – 5 episodes talking about various aspects

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      5. duckduckmoose*

        There’s a podcast called Acquired that did an episode on Enron, it’s worth a listen if you’re interested in the topic.

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    3. CTT*

      I also went down an Enron rabbit hole a while back, and I am haunted by the failed Blockbuster deal and how much that had to influence their refusal to work with Netflix.

      Reply ↓
    4. Beth*

      That’s also the story behind Microsoft going from the top software company in the world to the flailing mediocrity it still is now.

      Reply ↓
  13. Texas Teacher*

    Transparency in evaluations is so important. Even if it’s not tied to a raise.
    Last year I had a job in which I kept being appraised as just below proficient; I think it was because the administration expected my lesson design to look like the core content areas. When I asked for advice from district specialists, they would assure me that I was a fine teacher and needed to explain my methods to my appraisers better. (I tried!)
    I would ask to go with my appraiser to observe someone in my content area who was scoring well, but either everyone in the district was a poor teacher (not the case) or they didn’t want to bother, I guess.
    This year I am in another district. My scores are very good. I have an appraiser that knows what they’re looking at, and district specialists that can and do regularly communicate with campus admin about our program.
    The difference in morale, my health and energy levels, my feeling of job security, it’s incredible. I took a slight pay cut taking this position, but it was so worth it.

    Reply ↓
    1. Selina Luna*

      My husband and I work in the same school, and for the first time, we have the same appraiser, and we’re going through issues similar to yours. It’s so annoying.
      He doesn’t understand my job at all (I am in charge of credit recovery, the kids who need to retake a high school class because they failed a core class or transferred from a different state), so he grades me against things that he will never observe. I don’t have lesson plans because I’m effectively a caseworker, for example.
      My husband is a core teacher, and this appraiser is just making up lies about him. He even tried to get my husband fired, and was basically told to drop the charges because when his boss looked at them, they were ridiculous lies. I have little hope of this appraiser being fired, though.
      These are the things that make being a teacher in the US (Texas, which is very different from New Mexico, is still struggling) weird and scary right now.

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  14. DJ Abbott*

    I just want to call this out from #1:
    “My own manager handles it by suddenly getting super critical of things that she’d been saying were excellent”
    Please don’t do this! Ever. If this was being done to me, I would be hurt and my thought would be “they don’t like me anymore, they want me out of here.”
    Most people who are not in management and/or don’t know about the curve system would respond this way. If I did understand what was really going on, I would call it out and say “please don’t manipulate me. Let’s be honest about what’s going on here.”
    Being emotionally abused at work is my hill to die on. I’m just going through something now with this, after I thought we had all gotten past it. I’m standing up to managers and if they fire me, I’ll be ok with that.
    I would never stay in a job that treats me like #1’s boss, for any reason. Life is too short.

    Reply ↓
    1. Fledge Mulholland*

      I am a teacher who once had to be observed by an administrator who was forced to name three things to improve in my classroom every time I was observed. My department head started to get so nit-picky. It really started to hurt my feelings since I didn’t feel like most of them were rooted in truth but I started to doubt self. Then, they started to get really crazy. The best one : “The shades in Ms. Mullholland’s classroom are pulled down unevenly and this is distracting to students in the learning environment”. Absurd.

      Reply ↓
      1. Rhetcon*

        The shades. Were pulled down. Unevenly. Wow wow wow. I hope this at least made you feel a little better, since they were obviously looking around the room in desperation for anything to say.

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    2. Hyaline*

      This–the LW’s manager’s way of handing this is terrible! I also thought–wow, the toxic way the LW’s manager handled reviews is already trickling down, because the good advice of “be transparent about what’s happening” wasn’t immediately obvious to the LW. Like–having not been emotionally manipulated in this way, my first though was “expose the game and be transparent–*of course* you don’t pretend that this artificial bell curve is real, tell your team to basically disregard their number score, YES say there are stupid rules and you only have one chocolate bar to hand out even though they all deserve chocolate bars, blame the system and move on, and spend your time in the review itself on stuff that actually matters.”

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    3. Web of Pies*

      Yes, THANK YOU LW for recognizing this and resisting doing it yourself!!

      My last (super toxic) company had no systems or structures for anything (raises and promotions were purely based on the boss liking you) and magically, all of a sudden, when I’m asking for a raise, it’s all, “you’re complaining too much and everyone sees it, your fellow employees talk to me about it.” Like, yeah I’m so sure. Then it was “well you make a lot of money so that should be enough.” LOL ok bro, thanks for telling me there’s no point in going above and beyond! Very good for my work life balance, enjoy my apathy. (I left soon after)

      Reply ↓
    4. DJ Abbott*

      So, at the end of the second discussion this week with my boss, which took a good 45 minutes, I finally got across to her that my supervisor’s approach is hurtful and not constructive. That only took two tries and roughly an hour and a half altogether.

      Reply ↓
  15. Audrey Puffins*

    Fun fact for #4, when Tony Todd was filming Candyman and got to a scene where he had to have live bees in his mouth, he had an arrangement to receive an extra $1,000 for every bee sting. Not quite the same situation here, alas

    Reply ↓
    6. fhqwhgads*

      Yeah, hazard pay is a thing. But you don’t get hazard pay for something that is only a hazard to you personally.

      Reply ↓
  16. SpiritedArachnid*

    LW#1 I had this at my company. Every department had to have a percentage of (3 pts) Above Expectations, (2 pts) Meets Expectations and (1 pt) Below Expectations. My department has three people, including our manager. We couldn’t meet the required percentages because our team was too small.

    Our grand boss had the bright idea that the way to solve the problem was to force us to always alternate between 1.5 and 2.5, meaning our actual work meant nothing and we couldn’t actually get Above Expectations, ever. We pointed this out to our grand boss and asked him what motivation there was to work hard if nothing we did mattered.

    Our department was apparently not the only one with this stupid solution because the company has less than 50 personnel total. After two years of plummeting morale and performance, the whole idea was thrown out.

    Reply ↓
  17. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

    If I were told by my supervisor, “Brian, Jim, Helen, and you are all qualified to be rated as exceptional, but I can choose only one of you to be rated as exceptional, and I’ve decided to choose Brian. I guess you know that means Brian will getting a bigger raise than Jim, Helen, and you because I’m choosing him to be exceptional. But don’t worry! I’ve decided to give you the opportunity to work on that project you’re really interested in! Don’t you feel better now?”, I would start looking for another job immediately.

    Reply ↓
    1. Sloanicota*

      Well, sure, but how would you feel if the boss said, “Scarlet, I see you’ve exceeded all your metrics for the year, but I’m giving you a “meets expectations” score, because I have secret expectations I’m not going to tell you about. You’ll need to do a lot better next year if you want to earn a bonus!” when in reality the situation was what you described? Either way, the worker should probably start looking around for a better company – but I’d at least prefer the transparency.

      Reply ↓
      1. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

        I wouldn’t like that either! And I would start looking for another job. As for which scenario I would prefer, I have no idea! All I know is that I wouldn’t like either one, and I would try to get out of there ASAP.

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    2. Hyaline*

      Well, we don’t know if raises are attached to it–LW didn’t clarify that. But to be honest, I would FAR prefer my manager be transparent that the system was screwy and fake and her hands were tied in only giving one “exceptional” rating than have her gaslight me into thinking it was actually based solely on my performance.

      Would it be a deal breaker for continuing with the company? Maybe, maybe not. If “good enough” ratings didn’t hold me back from continuing on the path I wanted to be on with the company and from being compensated fairly, I think I’d see the fake rating curve for the ruse it was, ignore it, and continue on my merry way doing good work for a decent manager.

      Reply ↓
      1. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

        You’re absolutely right that the LW didn’t say whether raises were involved. I just put that in because Alison was the one who asked if ratings determined raises, and if they did, she suggested that giving unhappy employees the opportunity to work on a project they were interested in might make up for the fact that they didn’t get what they thought were sufficient raises (all because they weren’t rated exceptional).

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  18. Benihana scene stealer*

    For #4, often on Zoom calls people will have their cameras on at the beginning to establish the rapport or just have some small talk, then once the meat of the call gets underway turn them off. But regardless you shouldn’t have to deal with that type of pain if preventable!

    Reply ↓
  19. Parenthesis Guy*

    #1: You mentioned that there’s difficulty promoting people and that a few people are working at your level. If there are a few people on your team working at your level, and there’s no way to get them a promotion, then their scores in annual reviews is really besides the point. The bigger issue is that they can’t progress in their careers.

    It might make sense in that situation to try to break up your team to help them advance. If you can move a few of your top people elsewhere, they can take on the role of a second in command. They may even be able to get that coveted “exceptional” rating that will get them a 5% merit increase instead of 3%.

    The one thing is that it’s common not to be able to get an “exceptional”. Everywhere I’ve worked has used either a 4 or 5 point system where pretty much everyone got either a 3 (on a 4 pt scale) or a 3 or 4 (on a 5 pt scale) because 1s and 2s would be on a PIP and 5s just weren’t allowed. There probably should be a better way of scoring.

    Reply ↓
  20. Lalchi11*

    OP#4- I have chronic back issues. I spend at least half my workday working laying down. I’ve found that almost unanimously people were very understanding of me being off camera. Unless it’s absolutely necessary for some reason, I’d stop putting yourself through the pain.

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  21. Daughter of Ada and Grace*

    I fsking hate stack ranking. If I’m remembering my statistics class correctly, you need a random sample of at least 30 people to reliably get a normal (bell curve) distribution.

    Two problems with this in an office environment:

    First, a manager with that many direct reports is not going to be able to evaluate them effectively – there are simply too many people. (This is also a structural issue in the company – why are that many people reporting to a single manager?)

    Second, at least in an effectively run department, employees aren’t going to be a random sample of the population – they’re going to be specifically selected via the interview process as the person most likely to do well in the open position.

    And even if we disregard the first two items (which would be a bad idea, but so is the stack ranking in the first place), after the first year of grading your employees on a curve and getting rid of the lowest performer, what happens next year when you have one less person but still have to grade the whole team on the curve? Either you end up having to manage out good employees, or you have to deliberately hire bad employees knowing their only benefit to the department is that you can fire them at the end of the cycle rather than a good employee. Demoralizing either way.

    Reply ↓
    1. NotAnotherManager!*

      Thank you – the whole idea of your specific team being on a bell curve is absurd. Bell curves are for random populations of an appropriate size to be representative. If you are managing correctly, you should have NO people on the far left of the bell curve (or at least be using the review process to terminate them).

      When I did my reviews last year, three of seven got the highest rating. One voluntarily took on a very large, underperforming team when their manager retired earlier than expected and worked miracles with them. One renegotiated a major, multi-million dollar contract under very favorable terms and increased services for our company. One led an unseasoned team through an obstacle course of difficult projects, personalities, and unusual challenges with rave reviews from even the toughest of customers.

      Which one am I supposed to downgrade? Why would I give any of my strongest performers a kick in the morale (and comp/bonus) to accommodate an inappropriately applied theoretical framework?

      Reply ↓
      1. MigraineMonth*

        Even with a random population sample, there’s a significant chance you don’t get the expected bell curve distribution (especially if it’s a small sample). A truly random selector might select the top 10 accountants in the country, or the worst 10.

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  22. Samwise*

    #2 Even when you’re not new, you won’t always have feedback (especially not “constructive criticism”) every week.

    My previous manager had monthly one-on-ones in which he asked if I had any suggestions or feedback for him. Often the answer was “no” (a truly excellent manager). I either said, not right now, or I brought up an issue or situation in our division or around campus that I thought might affect our unit or our students.

    Reply ↓
  23. Dogmomma*

    how in the world can you do an office job..on your back? I have a bad back & there’s no way I could do this..js

    Reply ↓
    1. kalli*

      There are desk setups and attachments that allow this. The fact you can’t doesn’t mean that someone with a different medical issue can’t be enabled to do so.

      Reply ↓
    2. TeaCoziesRUs*

      When needs must, things get done. I’ll applaud OP, because it would be hard for me to figure out and they’ve obviously done it.

      Reply ↓
    3. ArtsNerd*

      I am actually really curious about their “work from back” setup! I have to spend much of my day in bed, so I’m frequently working on my side and it’s not ergonomic at ALL.

      Reply ↓
    4. Sitting Pretty*

      Not OP but in a similar boat. Due to a disability I have to work in a recliner. Not 100% reclined 100% of the time but pretty close to that.

      There is equipment out there for this kind of thing but it’s pricey. I paid for most of mine out of pocket for Reasons. What I use: a rolling laptop stand with multiple adjustments (up and down, tilting tray, swiveling arm). Laptop goes on that extended high over me wth screen tilted down, camera on top. Across my lap, a board with a wireless keyboard and mouse.

      It works quite well. It helps that I learned to type young because my keyboard is not anywhere in my line of sight! The biggest drawback of this setup is the lack of additional monitors. There’s probably a way to do it but I haven’t figured out how to avoid the absolute rat’s nest of wires. Crawling into your workspace and arranging it all on top of you is very different from stepping up to a fixed desk where you can just sit down.

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      2. MigraineMonth*

        I worked in a reclined chair after major abdominal surgery meant I couldn’t sit up. I tilted the keyboard tray down and made the text on my monitors huge, and it worked well enough. In hindsight, I probably should have waited until I was a bit more healed before attempting to work, even WFH.

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    5. LW4*

      By all rights, I should have developed neck issues by now. I lie flat in bed with just my head propped up and my laptop leaning against a lap desk (“desk” is giving it too much credit, it’s more like a hard cushion with good ventilation).

      I do take breaks, and sometimes I lie on my stomach instead. But the way I do it is not a long term solution. My injury is in a very specific spot and I’ve found ways to work around it that wouldn’t work at all for more generalized or chronic conditions.

      Reply ↓
    6. Caffeine Monkey*

      Not the OP, but it’s easy. I lie on my back, bend my knees until my thighs are at about 45 degrees, and rest my laptop on my thighs. I’ll sometimes have a stable surface to the side for my mouse, or sometimes use my trackpad.

      I often worked like that even before my wrecked my back.

      Reply ↓
  24. tiny*

    I recently interviewed for a job where, during the initial HR screening call, I was asked “what rating do you usually get on performance reviews?” and I was so incredulous I accidentally said my company didn’t do them, because my company does them in this bell curve/artificial scarcity way so my bosses always have told me to ignore the actual rating because it wasn’t accurate. Everywhere I’ve ever worked has made those ratings part of a system where it was impossible to be honest (like the LW) so I couldn’t believe this would be an interview question.

    Reply ↓
  25. Workerbee*

    Had a C-suite boss who prided himself on never giving 5s – allegedly the highest, godlike stature of recognition – all the while moving goalposts for people like me who were working toward promotion.

    Then he would openly whine when, in anonymous internal company surveys with ranking scales, he never received 5s either.

    Reply ↓
      1. RVA Cat*

        #1 for employee morale (“…ed off”). A solid #2 for what he is – though as CEO he’s an “upper decker”.

        Reply ↓
  26. Discombobulated and Tired*

    #2 – Years ago, when I had a new boss ask me for feedback at our one-on-ones, I knew it was a trap. I just gave him some low-stakes feedback, and he thanked me and told me he’d think about it, and at our next one-on-one he told me he’d thought about it and decided that I was wrong. I had no feedback for him after that, and was fortunate enough to find another job soon after because he was a tire fire anyway.

    Reply ↓
    1. OP2*

      Yeeaahh … I admit the “weekly self reflection: what can you improve this week” section gave me pause for that kind of reason too. If I say anything negative about myself or my performance, I worry that’ll just ding my reputation in my bosses’ eyes or give them fodder at review time. But, I had a previous boss who was kind of nasty and I think that’s coloring my perception here. My current boss seems okay. I just need to quiet down the Admiral Ackbar in my head going “It’s A Trap!”

      Reply ↓
      1. Discombobulated and Tired*

        Admiral Ackbar wasn’t wrong tho. Just kidding. You have a better sense of how your current boss is likely to react.

        Reply ↓
  27. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    LW 1 – I assume that when you say you have “only 10 levels” between CEO and entry-level you’re talking about titles & salary bands, not the management structure. Even so, that’s still quite a lot unless you’re at a company that employs thousands of people.

    Are there non-vertical ways for people to be rewarded? Special projects, recognized SME status, conference perqs, etc? I’d have some of those ideas in hand, and then go to your boss and grandboss with the bottom-line first approach: “This is a high-performing team, as demonstrated by (objective business metrics), and if we artificially restrict the grading & raises, then some of them are going to leave here. The cost of rewarding them with XYZ is almost certainly less than the cost of replacing them & the productivity hit we’d take in the meanwhile.”

    NB – coming up with (objective business metrics) might be hard if you’re a cost center – IT, accounting, etc. But there’s probably something out there if you look hard enough – “ERP operations costs for medium-sized continuous-process teapot manufacturers averages x% of revenue”.

    As far as talking to your team, how much are they aware of the artificial curve, and how prevalent is that practice in your industry and/or profession? That would guide me as to how blunt to be in explaining the situation.

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  28. Lily Rowan*

    #4 – you probably already know/do this, but just in case: in my experience, having a nice friendly photo in your Zoom (etc) profile really makes a difference when having camera off. It still feels like talking “face to face” to the other person.

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  29. WillowSunstar*

    #2 Here’s an option I learned from doing Toastmasters for over a decade. In literally every speech evaluation, the evaluator is supposed to come up with one thing the speaker could have done better. In many clubs, this isn’t an issue because most speakers aren’t all that experienced or say, speak at a professional level. But when you get someone that is at a high level, what you can do is say “here’s what you could do differently, if you choose to give that speech again.”

    Say the person did handouts but didn’t include xyz on the handouts, and it was a part of their speech. Or the person didn’t ask the audience questions, which Toastmasters encourages to get the audience to participate. Small things like that. With your boss, you could maybe make a small suggestion on something that could be done differently, not that it was bad, but just here’s an idea.

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  30. Sharon*

    LW#1 Ugh. This is so common. The company sets out clear guidelines for ratings and then ignores them. It would go over so much better if they said you all met the exceptional guidelines (if true), and we’re going to split the bonus pot among you equally. Or “you’ve met the exceptional guidelines for the past 3 years, but we can’t promote you in your current role, only if a higher level role opens up and you are hired for it.”

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  31. SunnyShine*

    LW1 – I would push back on your boss. Lay out the extra work your team is doing and what will change going forward. Basically, lay out what the company will lose.

    If you can’t push back, I would be frank about what is and isn’t expected of the job. It’s great that you have a high performing team, but if they are doing a lot of extra work, then it’s time to adjust that. I also would be upfront on what it takes to achieve the top rank and point out that only 1 in the company (or however many) only get that. And then I would focus more on building your employee’s careers to help them to move on to the next steps. Also point out that you value everyone’s work, and this is a new company policy moving forward.

    At my last company, I kept hearing year after year that if I tried harder, I would get the highest rating. I never did so I left the company. I still see them as lying and making promises they couldn’t keep. After almost 9 years, I received the highest rating in my current company. I acted as a manager and handled huge HR issues. The highest manager in my building had to approve my rating.

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  32. Putting the "pro" in "procrastinate"*

    LW #1: My company has a system like this, but we don’t have to apply the distribution across individual teams — rather, there’s a rollup at a higher level across which the distribution is more meaningful. So, for instance, a manager who reports to me has only four reports; he doesn’t necessarily have to have to distribute them across the whole curve. My org has a total of twelve; I am expected to come closer to the full distribution but still don’t have to hit it exactly. Where the distribution really gets scrutiny is over my boss’s full org of about 70 people, where it’s a lot more reasonable to sort people along a bell-shaped curve; she came back to her reports asking for only very minor adjustments to our initial ratings, and they weren’t unreasonable adjustments. The ratings are ultimately finalized across my department’s 200-ish people, where the target distribution is really not that difficult to reach.

    Could you advocate for something like this with your boss and grandboss? Demonstrate how your team is really hitting it out of the park across the board, and ask that the curve be applied to a more statistically meaningful sample?

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    1. AF Vet*

      Yeah this helped with our unit once they started getting stingy with exceptional ratings Air Force wide. I want to say the initial distribution was 2% of reports to each wing. So in a wing of 5,000, there would be 100 to give out. Each group (next level down) within the wing received 19, with 4 reserved for wing agencies. In our group, we had a “murder board,” where each of the squadron commanders (lowest level of command, in charge of a personnel unit of 100, or a civil engineering squadron of 500, or a contacting squadron of 50, etc) brought the performance reviews of all the highest performers. The group’s leadership would decide who got the 19 excellent ratings. Rarely it would be a whole shop of 5-6, because they did something working together like bringing in a runway repair two months ahead of schedule, or fixing a critical error that was causing payroll to me up. Usually it was for outstanding performers. Rarely it was for very solid performers who literally saved someone’s life. :)

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    2. NotAnotherManager!*

      This is still not an appropriate use of a bell curve. Bell curves are for RANDOM populations. If you’re just going and grabbing your employees off the street and assigning them whatever job is open, great, you’re probably going to have some people that aren’t well-trained or experienced enough to be average or above. However, in a system where you are hiring selectively, training/performance coaching, and managing, you should not have an equal number of people performing unacceptably below standard as exceptionally.

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  33. Ann O'Nemity*

    # 1 – It sounds like there’s an uneven playing field across teams, which is incredibly frustrating. It can send the message that being great doesn’t pay off if you’re surrounded by other great people. I totally get how demoralizing that can be not just for your team, but for you as their manager.

    In a system like this, it becomes really important to find other ways to keep your team motivated. After all, if high performers are getting the same rating (or even lower) than someone doing less on another team, they’re going to start asking,”Why should I push myself?”

    My advice is to keep advocating to leadership about the long-term consequences of this system. And name it clearly for what it is: a forced ranking system! In the meantime, focus on the things you can control: delivering meaningful feedback, celebrating wins visibly, and making sure your team knows their value goes beyond a single number.

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  34. Rock Prof*

    Maybe it’s reassuring to know that, for how weird academia is, we’re also just as bad, if not worse, at reviews. At my old school, the administration was interested in growth over time, so we’d start out with a score of 3/5 and then increase it every year. If we got too close to 5, there would be a reset. It didn’t matter if you published multiple papers or won a teaching award, you’re score world just incrementally go up. I don’t know what would have happened if someone drastically messed up, though, since all of us were some of the strongest faculty at school based on actual metrics like publications, service, and teaching awards. We’d rotate chair duties every few years, but we’d keep this system going. Luckily the system wasn’t tied to anything. Even coming up for tenure, it was just a small subsection for the performance evaluations and no one put stock in them

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  35. ElliottRook*

    LW1- this is so ridiculous. This isn’t school where every single person in an area is in attendance and a bell curve of skills/grades would be natural- this is a workplace! Your company specifically chose people with skills you need for the job by hiring! They didn’t just pick the first people to walk by, they put them through the interviewing/hiring process to have the best people possible. When all those processes work, ideally everyone earns an “exceptional” because that is the whole point of screening them!

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  36. ArtsNerd*

    LW4 – Actually posting this as its own comment. Would you be willing to share how you are able to work on your back? Are you just perching a laptop a certain way or do you have a whole setup? I’m usually working from bed but i’m not doing it in an ergonomic way at all, and that’s going to catch up with me sooner than later.

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    1. LW4*

      I’m not at all ergonomic! It’s as you said, I have my laptop propped against a lap desk and only my neck bent. I am supremely lucky I have not developed neck problems, and since this issue should be fixed soon (19 days to surgery…….) it wasn’t worth it *to me* to get a big fancy setup. It sounds like you would need a more permanent setup, and there are ways to do that according to one of my disabled friends! Costs a pretty penny, but once it’s set up perhaps it would pay off by making work much more tolerable for you.

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    2. Cosmic Crisp*

      I don’t have this need myself, but jenroses on Tumblr has posted photos of her computer-from-bed setup before, I believe. An adjustable monitor arm mounted on a wall or ceiling goes a long way though it can be an expensive fuss.

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    3. fhqwhgads*

      I had spine surgery and the easiest way for me to do compute when recovering was lie flat on my back, with a regular lap-desk thing, laptop and wear 90 degree glasses.

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  37. IT But I Can't Fix Your Printer*

    My large organization also has restrictions on performance review scores, which are tied to raises. I get reviews that say “you’re amazing, couldn’t have done this work without you, nothing to improve on, 3 out of 5.” At least my boss is allowed to be honest about the comments and we all know the process is out of the control of anyone close to our level.

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  38. Throwaway Account*

    re #1 – my low eval means I do the literal bare minimum and spend 4 or 5 hours a day reading a book on my phone. If I get asked about it, I’m going to say “I’m performing to the level of my eval.” I reread all the AAM posts about boring jobs and now I just lean into the boredom.

    In all of my jobs (municipal, education, retail), the evaluation has not been tied to anything at all, no bonus, no raise, no promotion, etc. They were a complete waste of time for all bosses but they were still expected to do them. The same is true at my current workplace. But it was nice to hear what the bosses thought (because we also have never done any kind of weekly or monthly meetings to address any concerns or successes at any of my jobs).

    At my current job (which is the most professional job I’ve ever had), for the first few years, I got some categories at the highest score (a 5), most at the next level (4s) and overall a 4. Some of my coworkers got 4s, and some got 5s. But then we got a new boss, a former coworker. Just a few months after being promoted, evals were due. He ranked me just above needs a PIP on most things and lower on some others – I think my overall was a 2 (which is “needs a PIP,” tho numerically, my average was a 3 I think he miscalculated – and I’m not on a PIP). All of us got a 3 (except my 2) and everyone was shocked. None of his concerns were ever addressed before the evals; all of his comments were a surprise to everyone. So one coworker with whom he is close, told him that evals should be used as a motivation tool. He was quite surprised!

    I’ve not done any work to speak of in about 6 months, beyond specific requests from him and others that are a routine part of my job, and I don’t think he has even noticed! I do ask him for feedback and if he has tasks for me but he never does.

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  39. epicdemiologist*

    The only reason to expect your team’s performance ratings to follow a bell curve is if you hired them by grabbing a random sample of the population off the sidewalk outside your building.

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  40. Qwerty*

    OP1 – Consider how you might be part of the need for this new system. It really stands out to me that you are telling employees exactly what to do to get an exceptional rating, which this puts you in a bind if everyone does their assigned exceptional tasks. Is your team as wildly amazingly exceptional by both peers and higher ups? To have 100% of employees be exceptional without having anyone stepping on each others toes would have some dramatically positive results.

    Whenever I’ve gotten the top rating, it was for going above and beyond. Any description of that top category was still vague because the extra work needed for that rating would be context dependent. Do you set the definitions that are given to your team for ratings or your company? If the former, work on reframing them so that it separates out who is truly exceptional from those who are just good team members that have been in the role for a long time.

    These types of restrictions are tough to work with, but whenever I’ve seen them rolled out it was because there was a problem with performance reviews starting to resemble participation trophies. And the best way to get rid of the restrictions was to recalibrate and prove they weren’t needed.

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    1. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

      Part of the problem with this ranking system is its rigidity. By your logic, there should be years when nobody on a given team gets a 5, and years when 2 or 3 people do.

      Maybe not everyone on a team is going to be exceptional, but two people working together might get exceptional results. Or Fergus and Jane’s projects might both be successful and come in under budget. Jane and Fergus should both get the same high rating for that achievement.

      Or, suppose a team does an OK job, because all of them did their jobs well enough. Arbitrarily rating one of them as “exceptional” looks a lot more like a “participation trophy” than giving everyone on that team a 3, and giving both Jane and Fergus the 5s they’ve earned.

      Everyone who finishes the Boston Marathon next week will have something to be proud of, even though only one man and one woman can win the race. Every one of those runners has achieved something that most of us haven’t.

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  41. HB*

    I’m disabled because of a terrible freak accident at work. Your employer has the right to terminate you if you have unreasonable accommodations or cannot perform your job. $100 to sit through a meeting is unreasonable. Think about how having no paycheck would affect you.

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        1. LW4*

          That’s so unfair. I’m sorry that happened to you – and at work, too. The whole system is messed up.
          I hope things improve for you.

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  42. MVS*

    Pretty sure LW2’s boss went to the Management Center for training because that template sounds very familiar. (Side note: didn’t Alison work there and literally write their first book?)

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    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Yes and yes — although that doesn’t sound like any template we were recommending while I was there. (At least not weekly; we recommended something kind of similar with a much lower frequency — quarterly maybe? Weekly is bananas. But I can’t speak to what they’re advocating now!)

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  43. birb*

    How could one weed out companies like this in the interview process? It seems unlikely they’d be willing to divulge their rating and evaluation systems outright, but what could be asked to “out” companies where the evaluation process makes raises impossible?

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    1. Bluenyx*

      That’s a totally normal interview question in my experience- e.g. How is performance measured, and how are promotions etc. decided?

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  45. Bluenyx*

    On LW1/OP1 – Lol, there are so many comments with management trying to sell or overexplain systems like “a 3 is actually good, really, even though it only gets a minimal COL raise!”. It’s such a big flag- if you keep getting the same misunderstanding or have to explain something this much, the problem is with the system you’re explaining, not the people who you’re constantly explaining it to! Just make a more logical rating system! (Yes, I know in most of these cases it’s about ulterior motives, but really…)

    In code, having to explain a section with a ton of comments is “code smell” that tells you the section needs to be rewritten. This feels so much like that.

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    1. Bluenyx*

      clarification- I meant “comments *about* management”. I’m talking about people’s work stories, not criticizing actual managers posting explanations in the comments.

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  46. Natebrarian*

    Ugh, LW#1, my organization used to be that way. The problem is that I have one person who is *always* an exceptional performer. This person basically always gives about 150%, while others on the team might be 90-110% performers. So this sets a dynamic where nothing will ever be enough. Am I supposed to tell Fergus that his 110% effort just isn’t enough b/c Jane will always outperform? And it’s not like Jane is super-competitive, she just loves to work, while Fergus and the others have different work/life balances.

    (Luckily we’ve moved on from the “only one” dynamic and I can now recognize different levels of accomplishment.)

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