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Tech Companies Are Identifying Their Worst Performers—but Not Their Best

More than 60% of a typical performance rating can be attributed to the idiosyncrasies of the manager.

By Joshua Merrill | February 06, 2023 at 09:11 AM
Stock illustration: Separating groups of employees

Facing an uncertain economy, many tech companies—including Big Tech firms—are reducing their headcount. But how can they be certain they’re not losing their best and brightest?

Facebook, for instance, is reportedly encouraging managers to choose the bottom 15 percent of their teams and mark those individuals for potential layoffs. Well aware of this, employees are likely already ‘managing up’ to make sure they aren’t on the list. But staying focused on keeping one manager happy does not always align with keeping teammates happy or focusing on company goals such as keeping customers happy. So the company may be damaged even before layoffs begin.

This is a common dynamic within businesses that use traditional, hierarchical performance reviews. People who are good at ‘managing up’—in other words, they are skillful at promoting their own work—tend to be the ones who get to stay, but those aren’t necessarily the organization’s best performers. Instead, complementing performance reviews with Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) can help a company control for the ‘managing up’ phenomenon and identify its most valuable employees, whom it can’t afford to lose.

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