Below are all the posts — topics as well as replies — that mention the hashtag #forcedranking.
Mention #forcedranking in your post to continue the discussion!
It has been proven a million times over that managers begin to get strategic about who they let go and rank, not on honesty at that moment, but on giving themselves wiggle room for future cuts. Some low-performers get kept for future cuts to save current mid-tier players who will be lower in the future. Some good but difficult members get culled under the guise of a ranking. It does not work.
ML loves them
So here we are
Avoid non-technical managers if you can, especially when you’re new to a team or XOM. Incompetent managers often lean on so-called mentors, usually people who’ve been around longer and somehow stablished themselves , and those "mentors" pass along their own messy, poorly defined tools, models, or tasks. You end up cleaning up their problems while they present it as guidance or support. In reality, they’re just fixing their own mess through you, and when evaluation time comes, they can point to your work as proof they were helping. Why the people they “mentor” often get ranked low? because the mentor wants to protect their own top spot. They push mentees into lower rankings to stay safe for another cycle. Part of mentor evaltion should be expecting high ranking for mentees... They’re also deeply involved in assigning projects and controlling visibility for whoever they want, so they end up effectively managing the group instead of the actual manager.
I've designed a new ranking system. Employees are ranked only during their first ten years. After ten years, they receive tenure and are guaranteed employment, benefits, and peace.
Poor performance? Your salary stagnates. No raises. No promotions. But no PIPs, no layoffs, and no more competing against the pledges.
Only younger employees compete. They have the energy, ambition, and sufficient remaining lifespan to recover from defeat.
Tenured employees may supplement their income by placing bets on which younger employees will survive the annual ranking cycle.
We may also sponsor promising contestants, share institutional knowledge, and help our favorites avoid elimination. Participation is entirely voluntary.
The young compete. The tenured observe.
After decades in the arena, we've earned the right to sit in the stands.
Preferably with popcorn. Thoughts? The only thing I'm flexible on the number of years. Should it be 10 years, 15, 20? Also supervisors dont rank, the tenured employees rank by voting
Warning to all engineers: if you are ranked with global projects they will use you to fill the bottom of the forced distribution. The narrative in global projects is currently that engineers add zero value only executing “project management professionals” as they call themselves deserve high assessment results according to GP. GP employees are vocally saying in meetings things like:
“engineering is just something to get out of the way so the real work can start”
“The way to finish a project is to demobilize all the engineers”
Avoid assignments on Guyana projects, expat assignments, UNCON anssignments, any project assignment or assignment where you will be in the same rank group as GP employees.
Saw a post here - they are claiming hittting 300%_ quota, led their team, and still got rated "Successful". They say their director was told not to give anyone Exceptional... obviously I can't verify that. But another poster says their mgmt team had to push back against rating someone "Developing".Are managers being given quotas for each rating? If you beat your goals, what does it actually take to get "Exceptiona"?
What I was told from an LL4 who quit recently is ford is back to doing the “forced stacked ranking” they got in trouble for in the early 2000s. So even if everyone on your team met their deliverables, they’re picking a few to rate “1”. It’s easy to point to badge swipes or someone being a remote worker as a reason to rate them a 1, especially on a team when no one actually deserves a 1. Ford has gotten increasingly toxic as a workplace. Keep your resume up to date and never stop applying externally. 4 days required in office is draconian and a lot of the best talent has already left
Bumping from @at+1m3ksj36n for important info.
I have 6 goals for financial year 27. I am told that is normal despite. To me this sounds odd having just joined from another company. Am I fodder for a layoff or some forced curving ?
Legal Action Over Alleged "Stealth Layoffs"
A federal lawsuit filed against Ford Motor Company highlights growing concern over how headcount reductions are executed without formal WARN notices:
Forced-Ranking System Allegations: The lawsuit alleges Ford implemented a rigid performance calibration framework that caps top performance tiers (maximum 5% "exceeded") while requiring at least 30% of workers to land in lower performance brackets.
Performance-Based Separations: The complaint asserts that management used these forced calibration sessions to execute "soft" or "stealth layoffs" across salaried divisions. This allowed the company to reduce overhead without triggering public WARN filings or high-profile severance package releases.
Is this what's been happening?
Be careful out there.
Stack ranking is generally considered ineffective and destructive for long-term organizational success, though it remains popular for short-term cost-cutting and forced attrition.
Why does PayPal still do this? It cripples your organization. Any organization still stack ranking deserves their ultimate fate, fading away to oblivion!
Forced distribution ranking is such a bad idea. Why does Exxon insist on keeping it? They are willing to follow the advice of consultants on other things why not this? Is it because they know it is corrupt but they benefit from it? Are they afraid under a modern system they wouldn’t be the high performers any longer?
Oracle has decided to down rank everyone in the reviews, they're pushing aggressive layoffs, demanding free overtime.
At this point what do you have to risk by coordinating a work stoppage? They're going to do layoffs anyway. No point in trying to pretend like they didn't put you on the list.
To HR and management reading this.. You asked for it.
I am starting to think they are just cycling all the non sponsored people through NI and NSI now. Is that the game they are playing?
If you are not sponsored the day is coming for you to be dropped in the rankings for no reason. You’ve been warned. When it happens it happens fast.
I get it. Posting on linkedin about their promotions is a source of pride for them. About 8% get promoted and 15% get put on a PIP to be fired. The next round of calibrations for end of year 2026 those same people will have to fight again just to not be on the bottom 15%. What a nightmare.
Apparently India staff are so impressed by WFs new ranking system and career prospects based on it that as soon as they get an IM, they start applying out, get hired in 1-2 weeks, and leave.
The best part is, execs don't understand this, don't understand it takes months to years to fully train up a replacement, and don't understand how this is leading to system instability. Why can't they just follow the Jiras to do the job?
The cards are starting to fall.
not sure if my numbers are correct, but managers know exactly
Is this distribution valid for all teams?
O – 20%
E – 20%
VG – 20%
G – 20%
NI – 20% (includes NSI at 5% or8%)
Do execs have similar ranking process as the rest of us?
If so, do they have similar levels of MLRP?
Just curious. Has everyone heard this every year since they started? Why do they even say it? Where are the not em very competitive rank groups?
All it takes is everyone or the majority saying they will not be participating in it anymore and there is nothing they can do. They can't NSI everyone! Spread the word and make them stop!
I got a partially meets for the first time in my career based on very shaky reasons that didn’t reflect my work or feedback. Anyone else in my boat? I’m assuming this just makes me first in line for RIFs, but is it an automatic de*th sentence? If my part of the business isn’t hit will I be let go anyway? Obvs no one is psychic, just wondering about lived experience.
Each cycle has a target percentage that must land in MLRP (NI + NSI). That percentage isn’t identical across all organizations, but the weighted average across the whole function has to match whatever HR planned for that year. Is it possible for some teams in some orgs to have zero NI or NSI in a cycle?
Well, it finally happened. Got called into a “quick sync” with my manager Monday morning. HR was already in the room, which tells you everything. They slid the PIP paperwork across the table, and before I could even read the “performance expectations” section, they informed me that because this was my second PIP in a five-year window, company policy allowed them to skip the improvement period entirely. Effective immediately. I was walked back to my desk by security to grab my jacket and my kid’s drawing off the monitor. Badge deactivated before I hit the parking garage. Eleven years, and I was out of the building in under 40 minutes. Some context for anyone who hasn’t been through the Exxon performance machine: the forced ranking system means somebody is always in the bottom bucket. Doesn’t matter how the team performs. My first PIP in 2022 came after a reorg where my entire project got shelved so nothing to show for the year because there was nothing left to show. I survived it, “closed it out successfully,” and naively thought that was behind me.
Many large companies still use some version of forced ranking, stack ranking, or quota-based performance management where a certain percentage of employees end up in the bottom bucket regardless of overall team performance.
Supporters say it drives accountability and prevents complacency.
Critics argue it creates:
If an organization is profitable, meeting business objectives, and retaining strong talent, what would actually convince leadership to eliminate forced ranking and PIPs as a routine management tool?
Would it take:
For those who have worked at companies that abandoned stack ranking, what replaced it and did it work better?
Interested in hearing experiences from both managers and individual contributors.
As we go into the annual review process, HR is always quick to point out that the employee evaluations have no direct correlation to the amount that an employee might get as a "merit" increase. I have two issues with this:
When increases come around every year, the vast majority of employees get a "merit" increases in the 1-3% range. This is essentially a cost of living adjustment. In fact that amount is usually less than inflation, so most of us are getting paid less every year (relatively speaking).
If an employee is rated as "developing" they are ineligible for a "merit" increase. Managers are pressured to identify approx. 5-10% of their team who fall into the "developing" category. These employees don't even get a cost of living adjustment, which is, for all intents and purposes, a pay cut because of forced ranking of team members.
HR points out to managers that its ok to label someone as "developing" if they've been in the role for <1 year, so a lot of managers put their newer employees in that category. But based on your hire date, that might mean you may go 18+ months before getting any sort of cost of living adjustment. For managers without any new team members (which are most of them after all the WFRs), they can find themselves stuck tagging a few people who may get a rating they don't deserve and its corresponding pay-cut because of the stack ranking.
Because this has been brought up, HR says they're evaluating the policy on "developing" employees not being eligible for increases, but that opens a can of worms if they do.
More and more, it feels like yet another underhanded way of getting people to quit so the company can continue to fly under any government regulations for lay-offs that exceed a certain threshold number of affected workers. In this case, the idea is that you get lower performing people to leave, however, I'd argue that in some teams, there simply aren't people who are truly "developing" and thus get pushed out because of this manipulative process.
I sincerely hope that this is still just a holdover from the previous regime's culture that will be corrected by the new executive leadership team, but I'm not holding my breath.
For those of you in IT&V who have been ranked and yanked, what was your experience? Any signs ahead of time? Particular day of the week?
FA managers got the email this morning - start FY26 Performance Evaluations as part of the alignment effort. Manager ratings to be review by leadership. Not stated, but expect a “rack and stack” of employees to be part of the process. Evaluations to be completed by June 26. Is this preparation for the next round of layoffs?
Just curious if EM executives set the same PIP targets for people that get paid full salaries vs people that get paid 1/10 salaries.
It seems the bar is set much lower for the 1/10 salary group. The person in America making corrections to BTC work products seems to get a lower ranking and more likely PIP’d than the engineers that made the potentially catastrophic errors in BTC.
Clearly the next step will be to either:
Some assessment groups have different distributions to allow more people to be ranked high or low. Seems fishy.
Public employee discussions on forums like this reveal several recurring concerns that individuals cite when pursuing wrongful‑termination claims or requesting class‑action investigation into workforce‑management practices at BNY. While these accounts represent employee perspectives rather than verified legal findings, the themes appear consistently across posts.
1. Abrupt and Unexplained Performance Rating Declines
Employees report sudden drops in performance evaluations despite prior positive reviews or long‑term satisfactory performance. Many allege that these changes lacked documentation, coaching, or clear justification, leading them to believe the ratings were adjusted to support predetermined termination decisions.
2. Use of Forced‑Ranking or Stack‑Ranking Systems
Some individuals claim that ranking methodologies required a fixed percentage of employees to be categorized as low performers, regardless of actual contribution. They argue that this system created artificial grounds for termination and disproportionately affected certain groups.
3. Pressure to Resign in Lieu of Formal Layoffs
Multiple accounts describe employees being encouraged to resign voluntarily rather than being formally laid off. Posters assert that this practice was used to avoid severance obligations or to reduce the appearance of workforce reductions.
4. Inconsistent or Withheld Severance Packages
Employees report discrepancies in severance eligibility, including reductions, denials, or last‑minute changes. These inconsistencies are cited as contributing factors in claims of unfair or unequal treatment.
5. Replacement of U.S. Roles With Lower‑Cost Offshore Positions
Some individuals allege that their roles were eliminated and subsequently transitioned to offshore teams. They argue that these decisions may reflect discriminatory or retaliatory motives, forming part of the basis for legal complaints.
6. Retaliation Following Protected Activity or Internal Complaints
A number of posters claim they were terminated shortly after raising workplace concerns, questioning new policies, or reporting issues to management. These accounts assert that the timing suggests retaliatory intent.
7. Patterns Suggesting Systemic Workforce Practices
Because many employees describe similar experiences, some argue that the issues may reflect broader organizational patterns rather than isolated incidents. This perceived consistency is a primary driver behind calls for class‑action investigation.
Some info for new employees: knowledgeable others’ feedback (KOF) does not always reflect true performance. You can have great KOFs but poor ranking outcome and vise versa, depending on internal dynamics.
So here it is the Enron model for managing headcount - forced ranking with 12 different goals, most out of your control. BOTTOMLINE, just another way to reduce 10% each year. Interested what comments are:
I wont say much apart from this one thing “do you not know mike that your mc’s force people down to needs improvement when they really are not bad performers”
Because of my rating I am feeling sui-idal. My manager even said that they were forced to and that nothing is wrong. So Mike do you not know that this messes with peoples lives. Do you not fu--ing know.
In high-trust societies, people assume good intent. Information flows freely. Collaboration feels natural. In low-trust systems, the opposite happens: people protect themselves first. Energy shifts from building to guarding.
Consider modern Russia. Decades of opacity and centralized control have cultivated widespread skepticism toward institutions. Citizens often rely on private networks rather than public systems. Information is filtered. Incentives are distorted. When trust erodes, talent adapts by becoming cautious, political, and self-protective.
Our corporate environment shows similar warning signs. Competitive ranking systems pit colleagues against each other. Information becomes currency. Feedback is filtered for safety rather than truth. Instead of asking, “How do we win together?” people ask, “How do I avoid losing?” Innovation slows because risk feels dangerous. Collaboration weakens because vulnerability feels unsafe.
Over time, this trajectory leads to silos, quiet disengagement, and eventually mediocrity. High performers optimize for optics. Emerging leaders learn to manage perception instead of outcomes. Trust, once depleted, is expensive to rebuild.
If we continue reinforcing internal competition over shared success, we shouldn’t be surprised when initiative declines and politics rise (and one may say that we are already there). But the reverse is also true: when trust increases, performance compounds.
The future of our company will not be determined by strategy alone, but by whether we choose fear-based competition or trust-based collaboration. We sit in a moment when the system to identify future Management is hindering the ability to run the organization. Perhaps its time to not burden the majority of the organization with PDS classifications and let them operate with a stable performance reward system. No system is great but we sit in a time of history where a credible change is necessary.
White Cap HR is rolling out a forced‑ranking system.
Leaders are being told they can only give out a fixed number of ratings — one “Meets,” and one “Needs Improvement” — even when all employees actually meet expectations. In this example the leader has two employees.
The problem? Raises and bonuses are tied directly to these ratings. That means someone is being forced into a lower rating (and lower pay) purely to satisfy HR’s quota, not because of performance.
Forced distribution isn’t automatically illegal for private companies, but it becomes a legal risk fast when:
• Ratings don’t reflect actual performance
• Pay is manipulated through artificial quotas
• Certain groups are disproportionately pushed into “Needs Improvement”
• Managers are pressured to create negative documentation
This is exactly the kind of system that has triggered discrimination and wrongful‑termination lawsuits at other companies.
If this is really the new direction, employees should document everything — because HR is creating a paper trail that doesn’t match reality.
Used to be great place to work...could get away with so much skiving. Then if they wanted rid of you would bench you followed by Payoff...or just a payoff.
But there's another way to get you to go....give you lower performance rating than deserve. And they'll get away with it under new framework. Appeal? ...sure but not to an independent panel, to the same people who give you your score. Great system.
Spoke to my manager today and he told me 40% of people were given lower score than should have had simply for reason 'we want to reduce headcount'.
Things are broken, time to think about Plan B
BNY MANAGERS / EMPLOYEES COMMENTING ABOUT FORCED PERFORMANCE RANKINGS, ALTERED REVIEWS, & FAKE RATINGS/REVIEWS
Here is a link that can be shared to:
Lawyers
Government agencies
Politicians
Media
Social Media
In addition to sending this link to anyone if you choose to do this, you can copy the below onto an Excel file to send that also. Then go to each cell that has the link to create the hyperlink. Now it is much easier to go through each of the 64 links below by using the Excel file and just clicking on the hyperlink instead of having to copy and paste each link 64 times.
End of year review
10/18/2024 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1v3USrXS
Forced Rankings
10/30/2024 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1vfzdq2Q
Bank of New York Mellon Layoffs 2025
11/3/2024 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1vjnRp5X
Severance. READ
11/22/2024 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kanvn6nh
Layoff month?
12/4/2024 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1vO1iWQh
Huge layoffs 2025
12/9/2024 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1vTPI3uc
Layoffs
12/10/2024 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1vUclZML
Evaluations are ridiculous
12/13/2024 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1vXOz4Cf
"… delayed year end reviews"
12/20/2024 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1w4acO3Y
Unethical conduct needs to be exposed
3/6/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jnq61rxs
6/4/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jwysz9hk
BNY’S negative impact on Mental Heath
6/8/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jx8e560b
25% not meeting expectations by year end?
6/10/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jxdztagf
Mid-Year
6/12/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jxkfd2vw
What are the rankings for?
6/16/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jxxnrc83
Forget about ratings and evaluations
6/18/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jy2bmmeg
6/24/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jygkgb3m
6/29/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jyyhdrt8
Addressing Age Bias
6/30/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jz0k2f5y
Does anybody still dare to disagree with anything in meetings anymore?
7/2/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jz685hcd
What are your options if you have been put on a PIP plan
7/7/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jzkdxpkn
Percentage to be ranked underperforming?
7/9/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jzrxwmj4
BNY PTSD
7/10/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jzth57na
Laying off in New York office?
7/17/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k0b93rem
Are we still pretending RTO was ever about productivity?
7/20/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k0m7mrrb
BNY Executive Strategy
7/23/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k0w0v3m1
Unfair rating
7/26/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k14pynw5
Battle Royale enviroment
8/10/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k29b61hr
PIPs, rankings, evaluations - they're all just cover for cuts
8/10/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k2b2xzs4
RTO 4 days sept
8/19/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k31tyhgq
Question regarding severance
8/25/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k3gk2wwg
8/25/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k3hx4sj2
25% Below
8/26/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k3jcj2n2
This place is toxic
9/3/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k47t0dan
BAH employee descrimination
9/23/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k5vyfa6f
No severence for you!
9/29/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k6bfsb60
High severance employees targeted
9/30/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k6d8ga4y
HR involvement in PIP
10/7/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k70mfaga
25% of bad ratings
10/15/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k7m85xy8
Year end in October?
10/17/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k7rjbb40
10/17/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k7sbwrmj
Forced ranking and state unemployment
10/18/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k7vmtecy
Will I be in the 25%?
10/18/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k7x2wrh3
I'm so tired of outsourcing
10/19/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k7yc7yy2
Morale's about to tank
10/24/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k8c8yrqy
December round finalized?
10/24/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k8b8gmps
Forced ratings
10/25/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k8e2kcpa
How is Collateral Management
10/29/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k8sgq033
Got out of jail card
11/6/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k9cqbgdr
Some Expectations Rating
11/25/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kayjyfk5
No forced ratings per HR
12/3/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kbjgv9en
Review this coming week
12/6/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kbv0hjhd
How can this happen?
12/7/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kbwpa5w2
To people worried about their reviews
12/7/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kbxp0grw
Let go this week
12/12/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kc9ytkz9
Reviews
12/16/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kcn1edkt
Bogus Performance Reviews
12/17/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kcq1468q
Merry Christmas
12/18/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kcrwen6j
Let Go 1 Week Before Christmas
12/18/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kcrydr7x
Bank of New York Mellon Layoffs 2026
12/20/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kcx3gtdq
Did anyone receive a bs rating and actually fight it
12/27/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kdgeyxj3
PIP In Disguise as Layoff
12/30/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kds9r52t
I doubt there'll be many more layoffs
12/31/2025 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kdt7kszv
Mandatory 10 percent PIP
1/14/2026 https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kez989mz