If 70% of the employees are working the best they can and are still considered average by the company, then what is that going to do to their engagement levels? They are going to feel demoralised and lack productivity going forward, which will ultimately result in them leaving the company one way or another. Great performers are still averageĮven employees that perform well may be placed in the middle ‘average’ group which isn’t exactly a motivating classification to be given and is particularly bad as they make up the majority of the team. The lower scoring employees could still be great performers who meet the role expectations, but are pushed into this bottom category simply because there is nowhere else to place them against their peers in this rigid model. Managers are forced to put employees in a specific rating just to meet the bell-curve requirements, meaning that some people are graded as ‘bad’ or ‘below average performers’, when that may not even be the case. The bell-curve model helps management to very quickly identify the top performers, which will prompt reward benefits and recognition that can go a long way to retaining the best talent within the organisation. If you have employees that like to work competitively, or work in a cut-throat environment such as hard sales or commission focused, the stack ranking method could increase productivity amongst the team to drive sales to avoid being placed in the low-scoring percentage. Can be a motivational tool for productivity The bell-curve ranking system doesn’t really care about that, and forces management to have those difficult conversations about poor performance meaning serious issues could be addressed right there and then. Managers tend to rate performance leniently to not create any tension, avoiding the often uncomfortable (but necessary) conversations that could demotivate staff if communicated poorly.

Pushes management to deal with issues promptly So, what are the pros and cons of the bell curve rating system? ✅ Pros #1. Rather these groups fall into what is called a “Power Law” distribution. found that performance in 94 percent of these groups did not follow a normal distribution.

and Herman Aguinis (633,263 researchers, entertainers, politicians, and athletes in a total of 198 samples). Research conducted in 20 by Ernest O’Boyle Jr. The reason why it’s sometimes referred to as ‘forced ranking’ is because managers have to do just that – forcibly rank all of their team into one of the stated categories regardless of whether they are all performing well or not, which surprisingly can be beneficial in some instances but damaging in others. Non-Performers or Below Average Performers (10%)ĭoes human performance follow the bell curve? Research says no.If you’re unfamiliar with the bell curve rating system in performance appraisals, simply put, it’s a performance evaluation method that force ranks employees into a bell-shaped best to worst scale, which often looks something like this:

Bell curve squeed