The “bell curve” template for comparing performance of staff has come under attack
in an action taken by a sacked Google worker who claims that she personally saw Google Chief executive Eric Schmidt reduce electronically the ranking of a staff member. She said Mr Schmidt could not have known anything about the employee.
In her own case Rachel Berthold, a former senior manager at Google Ireland, said she began to get lower rankings herself and felt she was being unfairly treated by her London-based superior.
She told the employment Appeals tribunal sitting on Tuesday the 11th of March that employees’ performance was ranked on a scale of one to five. Anyone scoring under three was considered to be underperforming against expectations.
Because of this, she said someone at Google always had to get a low score “of 2.9”, so the unit could match the bell curve. She said senior staff “calibrated” the ratings supplied by line managers to ensure conformity with the template and these calibrations could reduce a line manager’s assessment of an employee, in effect giving them the poisoned score of less than three.
In countering the argument Deirdre Lynch of solicitors Matheson, representing Google, said it was significant that the process of terminating Ms Berthold’s employment had been thorough with a performance expectation programme, followed by a performance improvement programme and final two final written warnings.
She said evidence had been given to the tribunal that Ms Sallaba the London based assessor had been constructive in her assessments and encouraging to Ms Berthold and they had met six times a month for several months on the issue. A full review of the process had been undertaken by Google’s HR manager Neil O’Herlihy, after Ms Berthold had appealed final written notice and Mr O’Herlihy had rejected that appeal.
Ms Lynch said there were two issues the tribunal had to consider. These were how much more time could the company have reasonably been expected to devote to the process; and how much more effort could they put into encouraging Ms Berthold to improve.
The tribunal will publish its judgment at a later date.