Microsoft does away with stack ranking
Stack ranking -- considered by a number of current and former Microsoft employees as a major detriment, both career- and morale-wise -- is no more at the company.
Microsoft is announcing to its full-time employees on November 12 that there will be no more curve and no more reviewing "on the curve" at the company. Lisa Brummel, head of human resources for the company, sent an e-mail to employees notifying them of the change today, according to my contacts.
There will be "no more curve," Brummel said in her email, and there "will no longer be a pre-determined targeted distribution." While other companies, including Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo, have their own versions of stack ranking that allows them to weed out "low performing" employees, it's Microsoft that's been criticized in the press for the stack ranking process.
