Does your company ever set people up to fail instead of just laying them off?

[Rick Lee]

In catching up on work emails today, I saw our new monthly non-revenue quotas for 2009, which are probably unattainable for folks with small territories who live in big cities and totally unrealistic for folks who have huge territories in non-coastal cities.

In 2008 we had to have 35 database activities per week, eight of which had to be either in-person or telephone meetings with clients or prospects. Not too unreasonable at seven per day. And it was totally reasonable for folks like me who live in Phoenix and whose territory goes from Seattle to Austin. Obviously, I have to do most of my client contact via phone and email with occasional trips. And of course, my boss always complained about my very spartan expense reports when I did travel. I never expensed a personal meal or even personal mileage when driving to meet a friend or see a concert in a city I was visiting.

For 2009 we are expected to have 10 in-person meetings PER WEEK, phone meetings no longer count and we also have to call 10 clients or prospects per day. Of the 15-20 new clients I stole from competitors in 2008, I only met ONE of them in person. All others were done through multiple emails and phone calls, which no longer count.

It's bad enough that this stuff is more important to mgt. than actual revenue. But now we have all been warned that we'll be put on double secret probabtion if we fall short one month and could be terminated if our three month average is short. I seriously wonder if this is just a way to get folks fired for cause instead of laying them off. Surely, mgt. knows their folks in Minneapolis, El Paso, Phoenix, Albuquerque can't possibly line up six in-person meetings per week. Last time I rode my bike to CA and met with seven clients in four cities over a week, it took me almost a week of phone calls and emails to line them all up. Time to polish that resume.

[legion]

My current employer? No.

One of my life lessons was a job I took in for a summer in college. It took me all summer to figure out that whoever took this job was going to fail at it and my failure was not my fault.

I took a job as a manager of a house painting crew one summer in college. I couldn't get ANY of the jobs done on time. Turns out that my salesguy (full-timer) had gone from the WORST salesperson in the company to the BEST salesperson in the company in the short span of three months (before I started). The amount of hours we had to finish a job was based on the dollar amount of a job. Guess what? He grossly underbid all of his jobs. When they did the calculation to figure out how much time I had to do the job, it also came up very short. Guess who got the blame for not completing the jobs on time?

As such, I have a keen sense for when people are trying to set me up for failure and refuse to put myself in such a situation. A practical example is when someone tries to establish "rules" for arguing on this BBS with me. I know that what they are really trying to do is to ensure they will win the argument by handicapping me.

As for your situation, if I was given a choice between spending more money and losing my job, I'd fudge the numbers. I have friends in sales positions and I've been a "prospect" for their expense reports more than once. Unethical? Yes. But so is rating people on money spent rather than the net revenue they produce.

As an aside, this is a constant argument I have with my management: if you rate people based on some metric, they will find a way to inflate that number. I see it all the time in my job. I've seen people who have 400 referrals that only spoke with 30 customers (making 400 referrals physically impossible). They figured out that they can "flip" the referral indicator on a screen multiple times to generate inflated numbers.

[stomachmonkey]

With a territory that large it seems you could quickly put together a doc that illustrates how impossible that is.

If you need to fly to make those meetings happen then when are you supposed to make phone calls?

Personally I'd hit that goal real hard and book the most expensive flights available.

[aigel]

Could it be that they are expecting revenues to shrink to an level where they are not a good indicator of employee performance?

Are they hoping to get more market share by increasing exposure?

It sounds like they are over-reacting, but I would not worry about this being a set up to fail. If they need to get rid of people, I am sure they would just lay them off ...

George

[Rick Lee]

Yup, I have to fudge the numbers. I can't very well fake a trip to LA or Austin, since I'd have to show hotel and travel receipts for it. But I can easily enter emails as outbound phone calls in our database. Honestly, I find emails to be far more effective anyway, since a client or prospect has all my contact info and initial pitch to refer back to later on, which they'd never write down if I got them on the phone. Several of my competitive steals have been from emails I received in reply to my original email many months later. What are the odds of that happening if it were all done by phone? Can't fudge the revenue though. So if it ain't there, I have some splainin' to do.

[red-beard]

GE took the metric thing to a new level. Rule #1 - If you had a bogey, you had to make it. Cooking the books was not allowed. But, if you had to cook the books to meet the bogey, rule #2 - Don't get caught. If you violated rule #1 or #2, you were out.

Rule 2 was quite heavily exercised.

Don't Get Caught!

[Rick Lee]

My company's 2009 mantra is "It's all about the revenue. No excuses." No, I'm not making this up. This is the email signature of one of our VP's. Pretty telling that they had to wait until 2009 to start making revenue the main concern, rather than the other BS metrics they love to analyze. What's even crazier is that we're all looking at hugely increased revenue quotas for 2009, which is not going to be a good year for anyone in the PR industry. 2008 wasn't great and these guys are expecting increases in 2009? Kidding me? Now I have to spend more time doing BS than the stuff that actually works. I think I have about three mos. before the axe falls, since that's how long I can skate on being below quota.

[Vipergrün]

"Meaningless Metrics" nuff said.....

It's all used as justification to nail folks when they don't perform. Then the employee cannot sue because they did not perform and it's probably at-will employment.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

With a territory that large it seems you could quickly put together a doc that illustrates how impossible that is.

If you need to fly to make those meetings happen then when are you supposed to make phone calls?

Personally I'd hit that goal real hard and book the most expensive flights available.

That ain't gonna fly. Logic and reason have no place in this company. It's a top-down, Orwellian, Kool-Aid kind of place. Once the word is given, everyone repeats it like some religious cult chant. Once in a great while, we get some bosses at happy hour with a few drinks in them and can tell them the truth. But it doesn't change anything other than get some folks some extra slack when they don't meet the unreasonable expectations.

I was told by a co-worker in DC today that my boss has been saying really good things about me recently, though I had a terrible 2008, and my co-worker expects I'll be able to skate for a while without making quota, since they have no one else in my territory and don't want to bother hiring and training someone new. If I were to demonstrate how my emails have been far more effective in securing new business than in-person meetings, that would just piss off the person who decided that in-person meetings are to be the new metric for 2009. And I don't want to piss that guy off.

[Rick Lee]

Oh, and see my thread a while back on performance reviews. In 2007 I was ranked #15 out of 75 sales folks and came in at 103% of goal. If more than half your sales folks are under 100% of goal, the goal is either silly or you're hiring the wrong folks. In my review I got a "meets expectation" for the revenue section. I protested that, by definition, I had exceeded expectations at 103% of goal. My boss said he agreed with me, but couldn't change it.

[stomachmonkey]

I know the type.

You should always lead mgt to reach the correct conclusion.

You go to your boss, ask for his help, you want to meet the new guidelines, lay out a plan for travel and time that is ridiculous/impossible and ask for his guidance in figuring it out.

By asking for his help you involve him in the problem and if he has half a brain he'll get in front of it. Phrase it as "how are we", not "how am I" going to meet these goals. It subtly reminds him that your failure is his failure. If he is smart he'll get in front of it.

Personally I'd get the resume out.

With any luck you'll get some leads before getting hauled on the carpet for not meeting goals. You'll be in a much better position.

[masraum]

Not quite the same, but similar. I worked at a retail auto parts store years ago. I pretty quickly worked my way up to managing a store. As a manager, you got a base salary, a monthly bonus based on controllable expenses, and a monthly sales bonus. When they gave me a store, the previous manager had let the inventory drop down to the point where an inventory only showed that we had about 70% of the part numbers in stock that were available. Monthly sales were $16k. My first month they gave me a goal of $18K, I hit 19k. Second month they gave me a goal of $20k, and I hit that one too. Third month they gave me a goal of $22k. I hit that one too. The following month they gave me a goal of something like $28k. I was no where near that. They left the goal there for a couple of months and then dropped it back down to something attainable for 2 months, then raised it back up. It quickly became obvious to me that the "monthly goals" were crap and were a way of controlling compensation. They'd let you get a few and then make sure you didn't get a few, rinse, repeat.

[Rick Lee]

I also had a similar thing happen with monthly revenue goals when my current job was with the same boss at a different employer. We were bought out by our biggest competitor in 2006, so I work for them now, but still have the same boss. Anyway, back then we had monthly revenue goals and were paid 15% of revenue above that goal. Every year it went up significantly, which meant we had to bring in that much more revenue to make the same money we made the previous year. We almost never got a bump in base salary or commission cut. It always chapped my hide, but I did always manage to make it and always made more each year than the last. Though in my second year when I was making nowhere near what I was told I'd be making if I was any good, and my boss always told me I was good, I threatened to leave when I had a better offer. I got an on the spot 50% raise retroactive to the first of that month and with my quota set in stone for the next 18 mos. That was a good deal.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Though in my second year when I was making nowhere near what I was told I'd be making if I was any good, and my boss always told me I was good, I threatened to leave when I had a better offer. I got an on the spot 50% raise retroactive to the first of that month and with my quota set in stone for the next 18 mos. That was a good deal.

Wow, impressive. Yeah, it seems as if most places are content to low-ball employee salary/compensation even for their best employees. Certainly goes a long way towards building loyalty, doesn't it?

Sadly, their response to you was basically an admission that they'd been screwing you for quite some time.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by masraum

Not quite the same, but similar. I worked at a retail auto parts store years ago. I pretty quickly worked my way up to managing a store. As a manager, you got a base salary, a monthly bonus based on controllable expenses, and a monthly sales bonus. When they gave me a store, the previous manager had let the inventory drop down to the point where an inventory only showed that we had about 70% of the part numbers in stock that were available. Monthly sales were $16k. My first month they gave me a goal of $18K, I hit 19k. Second month they gave me a goal of $20k, and I hit that one too. Third month they gave me a goal of $22k. I hit that one too. The following month they gave me a goal of something like $28k. I was no where near that. They left the goal there for a couple of months and then dropped it back down to something attainable for 2 months, then raised it back up. It quickly became obvious to me that the "monthly goals" were crap and were a way of controlling compensation. They'd let you get a few and then make sure you didn't get a few, rinse, repeat.

You should talk to my wife - about 20 years experience in retail management before she got out and into hotels.

Retail "management goals" are a complete joke. They love to compare everything to "LY" (or "last year") numbers, modified by some (often arbitrary) percentage - they do this for sales, shrink reduction, payroll, blah blah blah - all kinds of silly metrics. The dirty little secret is quite often (depends on the company, but it's the rule rather than the exception) - the manager has NO zip, zero, nada control over things that would allow him or her to make those numbers - they're essentially "along for the ride" on company policies decided by other people - advertising campaigns, PRICING, merchandise selection and quantity, store layout, marketing efforts, even payroll hours and rates. Therefore there's absolutely NO WAY the retail manager can control or even influence the numbers by which they're being evaluated. It's the biggest B.S. joke in the world. One of the reasons my wife got so sick of it.

When times are good and things just happen to come out okay and you hit your "LY" numbers, they give you a pat on the back and ask you why you didn't exceed them by more. When things are bad and things don't come out well in terms of the "LY" metrics, they often sack the manager to "send a message" or to "provide an example". Completely stupid and ineffective. All it does is encourage turnover and setting up more and more people for disappointment over time - and naturally destroys company morale.

Idiotic industry. I'm absolutely thrilled she finally saw the light (after her last layoff, which was completely ridiculous - new DM looking to "shake things up" even though her numbers were spectacular) and decided to say "forget it" and went into another field. Retail is a joke. Don't waste your time.

[ruf-porsche]

Yeah, my last two companies. Don't know what they were thinking when they hired me and they didn't have any work. First company was hoping to get a Government contract worth 5 billion dollars, but they needed staff with impressive credentials. They didn't get the contract and I along with about 75 other people were out in 6 months. Next company was trying to meet their goal of "Growing" the business, only problem was the office I was in wasn't in the Architectural business. I was farm out to other divisions of our company, but they didn't really have any work for someone like me because of my wage rate. It wasn't a surprise to me when they finally decide to cut their losses. Funny but another division called me and wanted me to work for them part time, but that was so they could get permits for projects in my area. I took a pass on that offer.

[jyl]

Almost everyone in my industry is an at-will employee, can get blown out w/ 10 minutes' notice, no explanation needed. Guys can get a call in the middle of a business trip, "all your meetings are cxl'd, take the first flight home, come in tomorrow and get your stuff, thank you very much".

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by masraum

Sadly, their response to you was basically an admission that they'd been screwing you for quite some time.

Well, I took a $20k pay cut to start that job on the premise that there was much more opportunity there and I'd be back to what I was making in short order. Didn't happen that way. When I went to quit, I really did have a better offer in hand and was planning to give my notice that day. My mom said I really should try to get my boss to make a counter offer. I was sure they could never afford it. And I was stunned when they matched it on the spot. Unfortunately, things haven't turned out so well since we were acquired by our new owner. They probably couldn't offer me anything to make me want to stay at this company and I'm sure they wouldn't try to counter any offer if I had one and took it to my boss. Right now it's a steady paycheck and not a career.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by jyl

Almost everyone in my industry is an at-will employee, can get blown out w/ 10 minutes' notice, no explanation needed. Guys can get a call in the middle of a business trip, "all your meetings are cxl'd, take the first flight home, come in tomorrow and get your stuff, thank you very much".

Exactly that happened to my best friend. He was picking up his rental car on a business trip and got the call to return home immediately.

Last time I was laid off, I was actually going to give my notice that same day anyway, as I had a much better offer from Verizon. When the boss called me i his office that morning and laid me off, I said, "No problem. Can I leave now, or do I need to finish out the day?" He was pretty surprised. Talk about landing on your feet.

[NICKG]

mine does. I am the meineke sales guy. Meinekes are the cheapest places to sell parts to, you could literally pay them to take your stuff and that isn't good enough... We all know it, but my job is to raise sales because in the 90's meineke shops did like 1 million in sales a year for us..now it is less than 50k....it is hard to sell mufflers when the market is no longer there or you don't have the applications they are in need of.