To Whom It May Concern,
The procedure this organization
uses to determine and distribute bonus and merit pay has an intrinsic flaw. Currently, managers are rewarded from the
same pool of funds used to reward their subordinates. This creates the real possibility for people-leaders
to withhold rightfully earned positive performance ratings from their
subordinates (and the subsequent monetary benefits that would otherwise
accompany them) in order to preserve allocated group funds for their own potential
gain. This inherent conflict of interest
should be remedied as soon as possible.
In addition to this systematic conflict
of interest being intrinsically, ethically inappropriate in and of itself, the
outcomes that arise from the problem also have the potential to erode morale
and trust throughout the company. Given
the number of people affected by it, the status quo is arguably class-action
worthy.
You’d be naïve to think that nobody
is taking advantage of this inherent conflict of interest for personal
gain. There are simply too many Objectivists
in this industry and within this organization that adhere to their own skewed
sense of rational individualism to realistically think people leaders are not in
subtle ways padding their own bank accounts at the expense of their unknowing
and powerless subordinates. Yet any attempt
to investigate or root out the behavior would likely simply drive the behavior
underground more than it already is. Communications,
directives, or warnings from on high would not eradicate the problem. The behavior is simply too easy to disguise, hide,
and deny. (A full-scale, systematic review of the
general population of people-leaders’ self-evaluations however could be
illuminating. You might find for
instance, managers are artificially and consistently over years of activity lazily
giving themselves stellar performance ratings that lack any iota of realistic,
self-reflection while simultaneously being collectively harsher on their
subordinates.) The problem gets exacerbated
when leaders are explicitly told by corporate executives to minimize the use of
‘exceptional’ ratings when conducting employee reviews (which recently happened
at this organization). This further artificially
suppresses subordinate ratings and subsequent monetary rewards.
Any isolated manifestation of this
inherent conflict of interest is bad enough.
But the situation gets even more grotesque when middle managers are collectively
and explicitly told by their own managers to not rate too many of their
subordinates with an ‘exceptional’ rating lest there not be enough money
available to reward themselves. Don’t naively
think this hasn’t happened around here either.
Why would anyone think conspiring in this manner would be okay? It's because that's how the system is designed.
Change the procedures for bonus
and merit rewards. Remove the conflict
of the interest (or at least make it more difficult to exploit). Thanks for your time.