Recent news about JC Penney color cording their employees has garnered some interesting commentary. Here’s a snippet:
JCPenney has split up its associates into categories based on their performance and abilities, according to sources inside the company.
The move has employees worried.
Sources told us that on a broadcast to supervisors and managers in January, JCPenney VP and transformational talent leader Michelle Steitz said they were to categorize their associates into one of three categories:
- Red — Remove from company
- Yellow — Coach up or out
- Green — Go forward
They were also told to “be prepared to make decisions” in the months ahead, according to a JCPenney executive.
“Not only were we supposed to do this with our team members, but as a Store Leader I had to categorize my entire team,” explained a JCPenney store manager.
Many associates don’t know that they’ve been graded and placed into these color categories — m ultiple JCPenney associates we corresponded with were still in the dark about the red/yellow/green system. source
Hint: this is not new
We hear this sort of discussion often, but the terminology usually refers to “A” players, “B” players, and “C” players. The tendency is to see this as a negative practice, but it’s really a way for companies to determine where to spend their limited training and development budgets. The practice also plays a role in succession planning.
Do you spend additional money on a “C” player who is disengaged and actively looking for another job? Would it be better spent on an “A” player who is a superstar performer? Making that determination in itself is another discussion entirely, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with differentiating performance.
I’d also point out that not differentiating employees based on performance is how you create a culture that supports and encourages poor performance. If you don’t treat the “green” employees differently from the “red” employees, the good ones will naturally trend lower with regard to performance. It’s not rocket science.
Check out the video below for more on the topic. I’d love to hear some ideas on how they might have handled this differently or if you think it was the right way to go. Subscribers click through to view.
Check out the video
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This will be my third SHRM conference to attend, and my hope is that it will be the best one yet. 60+ other HR and recruiting bloggers will be there.
Let me start by saying that if I could flip a switch and turn my employer into a ROWE, I would do it. In essence, a ROWE means that staff work when they want, where they want, and as long as they are getting the results, the rest doesn’t really matter.
I run across a large number of resources in my day to day work as an HR department of one. I thought it would be fun to snag the resources I accessed at least once during a week’s time and post them here for you to see. In the past week, here are the sites I’ve visited for something related to work…
This group was designed to help government contractors in our local area. The group focuses mainly on the laws and executive orders that impact employers in our area, so the niche is fairly specific. However, since Huntsville contains a high concentration of government contractors relative to other industries, it’s actually a fairly well-attended group.