Rank & Yank

When you do a performance appraisal, be careful about ranking employees. I know some of you do this because some of my clients have told me that they do it. The problem is that older employees (older by age not term of service) tend to be ranked the lowest. These people are often put on probation with the threat of firing. They fight back by suing for age discrimination. Goodyear and Sprint have been hit with these lawsuits. Ford paid out a settlement of over $10 million. If you are going to rank, you better have some good documentation to back it up, especially for older employees.

How Do Women Get Respect?

Many of you have immigrant workers. In a recent presentation I gave on Immigrant & Ethnic Workers to a group of landscapers and nursery people, the question was asked by a female supervisor about how to get employees to respect you when they come from countries where there are no female bosses.

What it boils down to is that it is critical to get the message across to the workers that in the U.S. female bosses are very common, and it must be accepted by them. They must understand this, if possible, before you hire them. I know it is difficult if you can't speak their language to communicate with them. If so, then write up an explanation of this and get it translated into their language. If they are going to work for you, they must learn the differences about working in their new country, and they must accept them. Sure there are things they can hang onto about their culture, but this is not one of them. Just always remember to treat them with dignity and respect.

Do Your Immigrant Workers Understand Why?

This problem came up in a recent seminar I gave about the fact that immigrant workers often find out that other immigrants employees are making more than they are, and will complain about it, especially if they have been with your company longer. In many other countries, people are used to being paid according to longevity. They may not understand the concept of being paid for performance, productivity, or work quality. This needs to be explained to them. You must let them know that the other, higher paid person has better skills, or gets more done, or the quality is better and that the pay difference has nothing to do with how long they have worked there. Let them know that if they can learn a new skill, become more productive, or increase their quality, they can increase their pay also.
Hope this helps to clear up the confusion that you may be dealing with.