Most HR data is bad data (2015)
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Re: Most HR data is bad data (2015)
#2I'm hardly surprised by this. Anyone who has had to put people into promote/keep/meh/remove buckets is keenly aware how much gut feeling is involved
Re: Most HR data is bad data (2015)
#3This is why you need to structure your review process around objectively verifiable info as much as possible. Have clear areas of responsibility for each individual, such that you can readily evaluate what they accomplished and how well it's working. They are responsible for a particular mission and set of objectives, and they either achieve them or they don't.
This can't work without individual ownership, which is antithetical to "best practices" at many places.
Re: Most HR data is bad data (2015)
#4> when I rate you, on anything, my rating reveals to the world far more about me than it does about you.
Perhaps there's an approach where we tell an employee to rate everyone, and then use those values only as a self-assessment of the employee.
Re: Most HR data is bad data (2015)
#5The author seems keenly unaware that all of this fake rigor in HR exists primarily so the company can say they have a process that is objective. This is not the same thing as actually having a process that's objective.
More to the point, objectivity may not actually matter much because so much of how a team performs is down to how individuals within the team gel, and you can't train someone into having a personality and work style that gels if they don't. Your coworkers can learn to handle criticism but they can't learn to be brash and assertive if it's genuinely not in their personality.
Re: Most HR data is bad data (2015)
#6This is why you need to structure your review process around objectively verifiable info as much as possible. Have clear areas of responsibility for each individual, such that you can readily evaluate what they accomplished and how well it's working. They are responsible for a particular mission and set of objectives, and they either achieve them or they don't. This can't work without individual ownership, which is a…
Structuring the review around objectively verifiable data creates other problems.
What if there's a developer on the team who delivers 1/3rd the features as everyone else, but they offer such effective mentorship that their five teammates deliver features 2x faster? If you design your review process around objectively verifiable data, then it's almost certain to undervalue a developer who's great at mentorship because mentorship is hard to measure.
And it's not just mentorship. There are tons of contributions that seem pretty obviously beneficial but aren't objectively measurable: recognizing simpler ways of achieving business objectives, communicating clearly and effectively, being pleasant to be around, etc.
But if you go the other way and leave it up to pure human judgement, then you end up with promotion being based on favoritism, office politics, and irrational biases.
Re: Most HR data is bad data (2015)
#7> when I rate you, on anything, my rating reveals to the world far more about me than it does about you. Perhaps there's an approach where we tell an employee to rate everyone, and then use those values only as a self-assessment of the employee.
It's called psychometric testing, and it is its own kind of garbage.
Re: Most HR data is bad data (2015)
#8This is why you need to structure your review process around objectively verifiable info as much as possible. Have clear areas of responsibility for each individual, such that you can readily evaluate what they accomplished and how well it's working. They are responsible for a particular mission and set of objectives, and they either achieve them or they don't. This can't work without individual ownership, which is a…
Structuring the review around objectively verifiable data creates other problems. What if there's a developer on the team who delivers 1/3rd the features as everyone else, but they offer such effective mentorship that their five teammates deliver features 2x faster? If you design your review process around objectively verifiable data, then it's almost certain to undervalue a developer who's great at mentorship becaus…
> But if you go the other way and leave it up to pure human judgement, then you end up with promotion being based on favoritism, office politics, and irrational biases.
And my personal favorite: luck of the draw.
Re: Most HR data is bad data (2015)
#9As a data scientist, this is one of those fuzzy subjective human problems that I just don’t think is going to be solved at all anytime soon.
My proposal is that we allow managers and reports to shift around much more fluidly to find a good “fit”. How to implement that? No idea.
Re: Most HR data is bad data (2015)
#10This is why you need to structure your review process around objectively verifiable info as much as possible. Have clear areas of responsibility for each individual, such that you can readily evaluate what they accomplished and how well it's working. They are responsible for a particular mission and set of objectives, and they either achieve them or they don't. This can't work without individual ownership, which is a…
Structuring the review around objectively verifiable data creates other problems. What if there's a developer on the team who delivers 1/3rd the features as everyone else, but they offer such effective mentorship that their five teammates deliver features 2x faster? If you design your review process around objectively verifiable data, then it's almost certain to undervalue a developer who's great at mentorship becaus…
People making lots of soft contributions like mentorship / leadership tend to be the kind of well-liked personable sorts who do well on non-objective assessments, which always manage to color evaluations even when you try to make them as objective as possible.