評論
打印
Business
商業報道
Motivating workers
激勵員工
Ranked and yanked
評級與封殺
Firms that keep grading their staff ruthlessly may not get the best from them.
那些總是無情地把員工分個三六九等的公司或許并不能得到最好的效果。
Mayer: who's for the chop next?
Mayer：誰是下一個要開除的？
IT IS a brutal management technique in which bosses grade their employees' performance along a vitality curve and sack those who fall into the lowest category.
老板們對雇員們的表現按照活力曲線來評定，然后把最差的一些炒掉魷魚的管理方法實在非常殘酷。
Known as ranking and yanking, it had its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s.
這個被稱為評級與封殺的做法在19世紀80和90年代達到了全盛期。
In America its popularity faded somewhat after it was seen to have contributed to the fall of Enron.
在美國，實施該策略的公司因其被認為促成了安然公司的破產曾大量減少，
Now it is back in the headlines.
不過現在這個字眼又重新見諸報端。
On November 8th All Things D, a tech-industry website, reported that Yahoo staff are increasingly unhappy about a quarterly performance review introduced last year by the new boss, Marissa Mayer.
在11月8日，技術產業網站All Things D報道說，雅虎的員工們對于新老板Marissa Mayer去年引入的季度表現評估正日漸不滿。
The grading exercise is said to have cost 600 of them their jobs in recent weeks.
據說，這種評估行為導致幾周內就有600人沒了工作。
Four days later, Microsoft announced that its own, equally unpopular system was being scrapped.
四天以后，微軟宣布廢除它自己同樣不受歡迎的評價系統。
In a memo, Lisa Brummel, Microsoft's head of human resources, said there would be no more ratings and no more curve.
在一份備忘錄上，微軟人力資源主管Lisa Brummel說道，再也不會有打分和曲線了。
The firm would implement a fundamentally new approach, designed to encourage teamwork and collaboration.
微軟將會啟用一個用來鼓勵團結合作的嶄新的方法。
Many firms, from Amazon to PwC, still use some version of what management theorists also call stack ranking to sort the sheep from the goats in their workforce.
從亞馬遜到普華永道的許多公司依然在使用許多管理理論家稱作員工排序的方法來挑選出不夠格的員工。
However, many of them enforce it more flexibly than seems to have been the case at Microsoft or Yahoo.
然而，其中大多數的公司在實行時要比微軟和雅虎這些公司有彈性的多。
Even General Electric, which pioneered the technique during the uncompromising reign of Neutron Jack Welch, has since softened its approach.
甚至在中子彈杰克韋爾奇治下首先采用這種管理方法的通用電氣近年來也軟化了實行方法。
The reason such gradings have not died out entirely is because employers still need to find ways to fairly evaluate their employees and have a basis for compensation differences, says Robert Kaplan of Harvard Business School.
這種評分策略沒有完全消失的原因在于老板們仍然需要找到公平評估雇員的方法并據此確定報酬差異。
This is especially true when there is a wide gap between the remuneration of top performers and the rest.
當頂級員工的工資和其他人差的很多的時候，這尤其顯得很重要。
To avoid lawsuits claiming unfair discrimination, firms need to be able to show they have a clear basis for decisions on pay and bonuses.
這話來自于哈佛商學院的Robert Kaplan。為了避免不公待遇和員工歧視的訴訟，公司在決定酬勞和福利的時候需要有明確的根據。
Ranking and yanking is more logical in investment banks, law and accountancy firms and big consultancies:
評級和封殺在投資銀行、法律和會計公司以及大型咨詢公司這些行業中要更合理一些：
their business model is, in a sense, built on recruiting large numbers of junior staff and motivating them with the prospect of becoming a partner, even though in practice only a few of them can ever make it.
他們的業務形式在某種程度上就是建立在招收大量新員工然后用成為合作人的目標激勵他們努力工作，雖然實際上只有極少數人能夠做到。
In other types of business, the evidence suggests that it may work at first, if a firm needs to cut away dead wood.
但在其他行業中，有證據顯示這個方法在公司想要除去公司的贅余部分時還是能管用一段時間的。
But the benefit can disappear and turn into a cost if the ranking and yanking is done repeatedly, says Denise Rousseau of Carnegie Mellon University.
但是如果重復進行下去，就會由使公司收益變為帶來損失?？突仿〈髮W的Denise Rousseau如此說道。
You can quickly end up with the people in the bottom quartile being average performers rather than poor performers, she notes.
很快，處在評估表底部的人就會是一般員工而非業務糟糕者她解釋道，
There is nothing wrong with being average in an above-average workforce.
在一群極其優秀的員工中成為普通一員可沒什么不對的。
A lot of good work is done by average people.
眾多的優秀工作都是由普通人做成的。
If a large proportion of the workforce doubt the fairness of the grading system, and fear being among an arbitrarily imposed quota of underperformers, many may try to jump before they are pushed:
如果員工中較大一部分人懷疑評價體系的公正性，并且擔心被隨機地劃分為不合格員工，其中不少就會嘗試在被開除之前跳槽：
staff turnover may thus be higher than is desirable.
人員流動程度就會比期望的更大。
Worse, employees may look for ways to game the system, as happened at Enron, where workers conspired to inflate their results to secure their bonuses or escape the axe.
更糟的是，雇員會想法設法利用體系的規則，正如安然事件中發生的那樣，員工們串通起來夸大自己的成果來保證自己的獎勵或是避免被開除。
That is not the sort of teamwork and collaboration that is wanted.
這可不是我們想要的那種團結合作。
