Pros
Fair starting compensation, the team I lead is very dedicated, the onboarding process is very smooth, there are opportunities to mentor and be mentored.
Cons
The current performance management process is deeply flawed. Leaders collect ratings from managers and supervisors, then gather in a room with peers to “calibrate.” During this meeting, a predetermined percentage of employees must receive low ratings.
At one point, someone referred to this as “forced ratings,” and the IT leader became visibly upset, insisting that it was not. However, I was present for the discussion: we lowered ratings, checked the spreadsheet, lowered more ratings, checked the spreadsheet again, and repeated this cycle until we hit the percentage the IT leader said had to be met.
From conversations with peers outside of IT, this appears to be a common practice across the organization. Unfortunately, the approach often results in employees receiving ratings that do not accurately reflect their actual performance. These artificially lowered ratings directly affect merit increases and bonuses—even if the bonuses are relatively small—creating consequences that feel at best unfair.
Regardless of what label is used, the experience felt undeniably forced.