Stack ranking = Discrimination at Microsoft
Mar 1 2007, 1:17 PM EST
| Post edited: Mar 1 2007, 1:17 PM EST
As a 10+ yr employee, I found Steve Gall finding quite accurate except for the fact that he missed how stack ranking directly perpetuates discrimination. Even though MS has grown increasing diverse with minorities comprising nearly 40%, management has steadily remained about 90% male / Caucasian.
How can this happened in a supposedly enlightened company? Easy, managers stack rank employees weeks before they ever read a performace review. Lacking objective peformance data, managers instead rely on their gut instincts in this "lifeboat" exercise. Inevitably, the employees they throw overboard are the ones that are least like them. It should also be pointed out that there is NO training for stack ranking and HR even goes as far to disavow its existence. Couple this with the fact that managers are not required to receive civil rights or diversity training (less than 1% ever enroll in the HR course) and you have an environment that self perpetuates discrimination.
The disastrous effects of this management "in-breeding" are self evident: lack of innovation and competitiveness in a global marketplace, talented employees being purged from the company simply because of their race, age or gender, and legal consequences such as the $4B class action lawsuit in 2002 that was filed by African American employees. Although the company claims to have done away with stack ranking as part of an HR overhaul last year (including the firing of the prior VP), as an insider I can tell you that the practice is still alive and well, just more cleverly hidden. Its no wonder that other competitors are flying past Microsoft when their managers stubbornly cling to stack ranking and a 1950's like fear mentality towards diversity.
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