> "The article seems to think this doesn't work because you can't give a large bonus to everyone"
Indeed. Why can't you simply measure people against a consistent, externally-defined bar, and reward them based on their share of their performance group?
e.g., Employees who hit the bar are in group C, employees who exceed it are in group B, employees who are extraordinary are in group A. Each group has a portion of the bonus pool, and each member of a group gets the same as every other member of their group.
You can still get rewarded for better work, but now you're no longer working against an arbitrary bar defined by your peers. If you, hypothetically, have a team full of rockstars then everyone shares the bonus pool equally. Done.
Also, what's up with tying raises (not bonuses) to performance rankings? At the end of the day people will leave if they can get paid more elsewhere. The best/only way to ensure your employees don't leave is to keep paying them at or near what they can get on the open market today. That guy may be the weakest engineer on your team, but he's still a good engineer and can do a lot better than the shitty 2% raise you've stuck him with.
Indeed. Why can't you simply measure people against a consistent, externally-defined bar, and reward them based on their share of their performance group?
e.g., Employees who hit the bar are in group C, employees who exceed it are in group B, employees who are extraordinary are in group A. Each group has a portion of the bonus pool, and each member of a group gets the same as every other member of their group.
You can still get rewarded for better work, but now you're no longer working against an arbitrary bar defined by your peers. If you, hypothetically, have a team full of rockstars then everyone shares the bonus pool equally. Done.
Also, what's up with tying raises (not bonuses) to performance rankings? At the end of the day people will leave if they can get paid more elsewhere. The best/only way to ensure your employees don't leave is to keep paying them at or near what they can get on the open market today. That guy may be the weakest engineer on your team, but he's still a good engineer and can do a lot better than the shitty 2% raise you've stuck him with.