One of the more interesting challenges for IT leaders is to be directionally correct in their assessment of ‘employee trajectory’ during the annual review process.
It is human nature to label/classify/categorize, and many of us have spent a significant amount of time placing staff into neat HR-derived boxes: “she’s a rising star”, “he’s a trusted professional”, etc.
I’ve often wondered how accurate the typical manager is in assigning these labels, and whether that categorization process really benefits an organization. Like any label, an assignment into an HR box can take on a life of it’s own, and may be hard to shake off.
Of the dozens of trajectories that could be placed on a grid, here are two, which form an interesting comparison (and I suspect affects many organizations):
Here we have two individuals. One is getting stellar reviews for two years, and as a result of that is likely the talk of the management team. He may be getting additional face-time with the executive staff, hard-to-find dollars for training and development thrown his way, or other investments made on his behalf.