IBM staff assessment system questioned

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In early 2002, trade unions and the Labour Inspectorate were alerted about alleged abuses of the staff assessment system at IBM France. The main allegation - denied by the company - is that a quota has been set for the proportion of employees who will fail assessments, and that such employees then risk dismissal.

Since the beginning of 2002, trade unions represented at the French operations of IBM, the US-based information technology multinational - principally the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT) and the French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff-General Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l'encadrement-Confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC) - have voiced growing anxieties about the companies' staff assessment practices.

The unions maintain that management has established a quota policy governing the percentage of people who must be given the lowest mark (4) in the IBM staff appraisal scheme by their hierarchical superior. Employees receiving this mark in their assessment are, the unions allege, referred to as 'poor contributors' and are not only deprived of a 'variable annual bonus', but also run the risk of being dismissed for lack of professional competence or being pressured into resigning. Staff returning from sick or maternity leave are allegedly often marked 4. According to the unions, in France, as in other European countries, a rise in the number of employees given a mark of 4 has been identified, and they asked that the issue be placed on the agenda of the IBM European Works Council meeting held on 13-14 March 2002.

In February, IBM Europe's management is said to have reminded its French management team of objectives that had recently been outlined in this area, ensuring that a group of around 400 people in France were given an assessment mark of 4.

IBM France's management denies that there are quotas and refers only to an indicative 'range of marks' supplied to managers, which allegedly gives a figure of 2%-5% for the proportion of staff to receive the mark 4. Even in that form, CFDT has criticised a marking system that it says 'is unrelated to individual performance but fixed to a staffing objective assigned to each of the group's units'. According to CFDT, 'IBM is using the 4 mark, which was previously rare, to conduct what is actually a redundancy plan, while sidestepping the labour courts and the Labour Inspectorate.'

If there were such a policy of quotas for employees declared incompetent, aimed at making job cuts by circumventing the statutory procedures involved in official redundancy plans, this would, under French law, constitute a misuse of the assessment procedure. As for giving employees a bad evaluation due to their state of health, this would constitute illegal discrimination. The Minister for Employment has asked the Labour Inspectorate (Inspection du travail) to look into this case and come to a conclusion on any possibly illegal practices.

On 21 March 2002, following a request put forward by the General Confederation of Labour-Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail-Force ouvrière, CGT-FO), IBM France's management organised a meeting of the company's 'accountability committee', additionally inviting CFDT, CFE-CGC, the French Christian Workers' Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC) and the National Independent Union (Syndicat National Autonome, SNA). The result was management's agreement to give the mark 8, ie 'non-assessable', to people returning from sick or maternity leave. The unions, according to the CGT-FO representative, consider it 'a positive thing that dialogue has resumed', although they still feel that they need more information (such as the distribution of those marked 4 by age, gender etc) which would enable them to come to a conclusion on whether or not discrimination had occurred. The unions hope that the meeting represents an initial step towards better collective management of the evaluation procedure.

CFE-CGC stated that 'the abusive practice witnessed has resulted in managers and their staff losing confidence in the marking system', which spurred this union to ask for the procedure in place in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands to be extended to France. This involves the option for employees unhappy with their mark to appear before an appeals committee comprised of equal numbers of management and union representatives.