In many ways Redmond is going through the most crucial of times. Only the early birth and formation of the company was a more decisive period in the long history of the House of Windows.
Not very long ago outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off what he labeled as the One Microsoft initiative, a grand restructuring and reorganization plan to redefine the company going forward. The whole process is estimated to take one year to complete, and we regularly hear updates on the changes.
Well, one update that is sure to have sent a wave of joy among Microsoft employees is the confirmation that the company is doing away with what is called the stack ranking system.
This is essentially a way to evaluate employee performance, putting their accomplishments on a bell curve and then comparing it to their peers. This system is highly used in the technology world, with companies like Yahoo! and Amazon making use of it to gauge how their employees are performing.
Anyway, this is a considered a controversial ranking system by many — in that it does not always provides a fair enough assessment of an employee’s performance.
Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley got her hands on an email sent by the head of HR at Microsoft, Lisa Brummel addressing all employees and confirming that Redmond is axing the stack ranking system.
The reason, you ask? The email states that the reason for doing away with this system is One Microsoft, and the company hopes to promote even more team work among its employees, from now on.
All Comments
It was time for it to go, but don’t other tech firms have something similar, and wasn’t pitting product lines against each other something Jobs used to do?
Do I hear “Am I not merciful!” in the background noise? Yes @disqus_aUjJoK3PRk:disqus, Jobs was a bastard in that regard from all the reports that I’ve read. It was such a negative function and I’m happy that Microsoft has seen the writing on the wall and are moving forward in the right direction (on so many levels), at last.