Keeping Salaries In Line

Today I'm going behind the scenes to reveal the secrets of corporate performance appraisals. This information will help you understand why it's best to suck up to your boss, even when everyone else hates you!

Here's how the system works: 1-2 times a year, your HR department sends out the form managers will use to confuse and disappoint everyone but the very best brown-noser in your organization. The rating system looks something like this:

1 - Miracle Worker (MW): Performs miracles daily, including weekends and holidays.

2 - Miracle Potential (MP): Performs miracles occasionally and may hang around after hours.

3 - Average (A): Rarely if ever performs miracles and has a watch alarm set for quittin' time.

4 - Needs A Miracle (NM): It's a miracle if this person shows up for work.

There are more specific criteria, but you must arrive at an overall rating similar to one of the above. Simple, right? But try to be nice and submit all of your direct reports as MPs or higher - even if they really are - and you'll be laughed out of the review meetings.

When it comes to handing out ratings and raises, HR departments follow guidelines drawn up by drunken former congressional committee members. Their interpretation of performance data shows that Average workers make up the majority of the work force (60% or so), followed by Miracle Potential (25%) and Needs a Miracle (14.9999%). This means you can only have a Miracle Worker (.0001%) if there are at least 1,000,000 employees in your organization! In other words, pigs will fly in a frozen hell before you see an MW next to your name (unless it's a typo).

The problem with the system isn't the formula, however - it's the way companies contradict themselves when it comes to handing out the ratings. See if you can spot the inconsistencies in the following examples (if not, you were born to lead a company):

Company X claims to hire only the very best people. In order to accomplish this, they would need to hire Miracle Workers! Sounds good, right? But remember the formula - only 1 in a million can have this rating. This means that if you hire a Miracle Worker, you must also hire 600,000 As, 250,000 MPs and 149,999 NMs to make your numbers!

Company Z told their managers that they only want 1's and 2's working in their organization, so naturally all the managers had to be fired! Not really, but I think you can see the problem here. If you somehow manage to build a team consisting solely of MWs and MPs, you get to tell some of them they're Average and compensate them according to the A criteria. Since these people aren't stupid (the reason you hired them in the first place), they'll see through your poor attempt to spin the data according to the company line and immediately begin updating their resumes.

I think we've all learned a lesson here: Update your resume now! And if you somehow manage to score the evasive MW rating, let me know. I'll have 2 tickets to Flying Demon Pigs On Ice waiting for you at will-call!