What is an employee ranking?

It’s an ordered list of employees from “most valuable” to “least valuable” derived out of the ERS (Employee-Ranking System)

What’s the purpose of an employee ranking?

It provides a logical and consistent framework for employee advancement, recognition, and rewards. It can unearth and expose significant inequities. If used on an on-going basis, it can provide valuable insight into employee performance and development trends.

How is “value” defined?

Different definitions make sense in different organizations. We will consider three major dimensions – competence, the level of contribution, and value to the business. In other words, how skilled the employees at what they do, how productive are they at what they do, and how irreplaceable are their specific skills or knowledge. For each dimension, we will consider both “performance to date” as well as the “potential for the future”. Since performance to date is less ambiguous than future potential, we will give it greater weight. Potentially this would help you to identify core members of your

What process will we use?

We’ll list all employees in a spreadsheet with some basic demographic information, their previous ladder evaluations, and the staff member they report to. For each of your employees, you will rate them from 1-4 (4 being highest) in the three dimensions described above. You will leverage the details mentioned in this word document below in order to identify rating 1 to 4. You’ll do that once for past performance and once for future potential for these three areas. We will then total the numbers and ladder all engineering employees together, assigning a 70% weighting to demonstrated performance and a 30% weighting to future potential. You can download the spreadsheet by clicking on below link

ERS – Products and Technology Ladder

How should I calibrate my evaluations?

Keep in mind that the evaluations are independent of job level and experience. The idea is to identify “most valuable” to “least valuable” That is, it is perfectly reasonable and generally expected for junior employees to get lower scores than more senior employees. In fact, when that doesn’t happen, that’s a sign of either a high flying junior employee or an under-performing senior employee. In addition, you can look at previous years’ rankings to get a sense of overall calibration. Then, use the supplementary guidance in the sections below.

How precise will all this be?

Don’t worry too much about the precision of the numbers. Our goal is to get relative ranking right. The numbers give us a big head start in aligning our reference points and in creating a single merged list for the whole organization. Once we have a consolidated list, the leadership team can ensure right people are in the right place.

Any other helpful instructions?

Please be careful not to break any of the formulas in the spreadsheet.

If you see errors in any cell, please highlight the cell and make the appropriate correction.

For the Rating column, enter your best estimate of the numeric performance rating (from 1-5) that the employee will receive this year or whatever your rating system is.

For the Promotion and the Performance Improvement Plan columns, enter a “Y” if you believe the employee should be on one of these tracks for the current year. Otherwise, you can leave the column blank.

The ranking would be derived from three core factors

1. Competence 2. Contribution 3. Value to business

Competence

Areas to consider:

– Breadth and depth of knowledge and skills

– Leadership and innovation, applied to people, processes, and projects

– Problem-solving ability

– Technical, business, communication, interpersonal skills

Rating 4:

Has mastered all required skills. Demonstrates strong leadership in one or more areas (e.g., technical, project management, process, etc.). Consistently works to leverage skills for team and larger organization success.

Rating 3:

Often operates above the norm, with advanced skills in some areas. Often expends extra effort to help meet goals. Has demonstrated leadership in one or more areas.

Rating 2:

Has all basic skills for job category and uses them effectively to meet project goals.

Rating 1:

Needs additional skills development to meet job requirements and to attain project goals. May demonstrate inconsistent achievement of task objectives and project goals.

Contribution

Areas to consider:

-Ability to meet commitments

– Overall productivity and volume of output

– Early communication of problems and contribution to workarounds that meets business goals

– Versatility – willingness and ability to adapt to new tasks

– Teamwork – willingness and ability to help others

– Leadership skills such as architecture, project management, change management, communication, and mentoring

– Ability to motivate others, manage self, and demonstrate initiative.

Rating 4:

Someone who has a lot of initiative, is a leader across the organization, and has outstanding productivity.

Rating 3:

Someone who excels in 1 or 2 of these dimensions but not all 3.

Rating 2:

Someone who delivers what is expected (i.e. does not take much initiative to do more), is a team player but not a leader, and has productivity as expected.

Rating 1:

Someone who is below expectations in one or more of these dimensions.

Value to the Business

Areas to consider:

– Knowledge and skills as mapped to needs of the business

– Extra points here for unique skills we need

Rating 4:

A critical person on a high profile project, creating a vision or blueprint for the project or accomplishing critical business objectives. Without this person, current and future objectives would not be accomplished.

Rating 3:

A core person on a high profile project. Without this person, current and future objectives would be impaired.

Rating 2:

Could be replaced without significant negative impact to the business.

Rating 1:

The negative impact to the business. Drains resources and causes objectives not to be accomplished.