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First they came for the office perks. Next they came for remote flexibility. Now Fortune 500 CEOs are exerting their upper hand by issuing employees new ultimatums: Show us your results\u2014or else.<\/p>\n
In early January, in the wake of massive layoffs, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy asked corporate workers to submit three to five accomplishments that \u201cshow the impact of your work,\u201d as part of a revamped performance review system that helps determine future pay. It\u2019s reportedly a departure from previous review processes that posed softball questions about employees\u2019 strengths and interests and included prompts such as, \u201cWhen you\u2019re at your best, how do you contribute?\u201d<\/p>\n
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is putting more emphasis on rewarding outstanding performers too as part of a tightened review system that\u2019s intended to slot employees into bonus bands and provide \u201cmore frequent feedback and recognition in a more efficient way,\u201d a spokesperson told Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n And finally, Citi CEO Jane Fraser warned employees that they are \u201cnot graded on effort\u201d but \u201cjudged on our results\u201d and urged them to adopt a more commercial mindset as the bank cut about 1,000 positions.\u00a0<\/p>\n To be sure, corporate America does not run on goodwill and how hard workers try. Employers have always expected their workers to produce results. But as AI floods the workplace with productivity metrics, the strongly-worded memos signal a reset that fully strips out the touchy-feely, more accommodating management style of the COVID era to focus on requiring workers to get stuff done.\u00a0<\/p>\n The no-nonsense approach reflects the pressure CEOs are under to grow their bottom line in a period when a series of X-factors\u2014geopolitics, AI, evolving markets, and an unpredictable White House\u2014can disrupt even the best-laid plans. Essentially, CEOs are passing the pressure and uncertainty that they\u2019re feeling along to employees further down the corporate ladder.\u00a0<\/p>\n The new approach to performance assessment isn\u2019t all stick\u2014there are carrots too. Companies are using a powerful motivator to drive tangible results: money. \u201cWith all those trends as a backdrop, the folks at Meta and Amazon and Citi are kind of reading the world,\u201d says Michael Useem, professor emeritus of management at Wharton. \u201cThey\u2019re concerned about ensuring that senior- and middle-level people perform, and are returning to compensation or evaluation, and then the resulting bonus, as an instrument to more effectively do so.\u201d<\/p>\n In the past, CEOs have pressed two other levers to motivate their employees, says Useem: purpose and so-called enriched work, in which employees can see the product of their labor. But those squishier methods might be better suited for an era when the power dynamic isn\u2019t tilted so heavily in bosses\u2019 favor.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n U.S. unemployment is still low, but it inched upwards last year to end at 4.4% in December, and workers are reportedly \u201cjob-hugging\u201d and more worried than they used to be about finding a new job if they get the ax. Workers\u2019 confidence that they\u2019ll be able to find a new job dropped to 44.9% in September, according to polling by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the lowest level since the survey began in 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n The elephant in the room, of course, is AI. The worry that artificial intelligence and automation could soon displace large swaths of the workforce\u2014estimates vary from 6% by Goldman Sachs to the eye-popping 50% of white collar entry level jobs floated by Anthropic co-CEO Dario Amodei\u2014is eating at employees. And this concern gives employers another point of leverage. One reason CEOs are citing AI in announcing jobs cuts is to motivate remaining employees to adopt the technology, Fortune<\/em> reported earlier this month.<\/p>\n The employees on the receiving end of this intensive focus on results have good reason to worry. Amazon, Meta, and Citi have all laid off thousands of employees in the past year, with more cuts expected. Amazon and Meta, for their part, are slashing their white collar payrolls as they fund massive AI infrastructure projects. At Citi, Fraser is in the midst of a lengthy turnaround effort that will trim 20,000 jobs from the bank by the end of this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n In issuing their memos and refocusing performance reviews on results, the CEOs may be triggering employees\u2019 anxiety. \u201cIncentive-based motivation is effective,\u201d says Useem\u2014but so is fear. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the strongest human emotions. When you\u2019re afraid of losing a bonus or losing your job, it gets your attention,\u201d says Dan Cable, professor of organizational behavior at London Business School. And it can concentrate worker efforts on a singular goal, Cable says: \u201c\u2018If you want that number, I will reliably get you that number.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But creating a climate of fear can backfire, says Cable. Here\u2019s what fear doesn\u2019t do: It doesn\u2019t foster creativity or innovation. \u201cWhen we\u2019re afraid,\u201d Cable says, citing research, \u201cwe\u2019re not taking customers\u2019 perspective, we\u2019re not thinking about new ways to do old things. We\u2019re not sharing information with colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to see why CEOs favor the results-only approach, at least in the short term: \u201cIt\u2019s so clean,\u201d says Cable.\u00a0<\/p>\n But in a messy world, with all those unpredictable X-factors, leaders would do better to foster ingenuity, grit, and perseverance. That means caring not just about outcomes, but how employees managed uncertainty to get there, and what they might have tried\u2014and failed at\u2014along the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Arrow #Button #Icon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First they came for the office… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[3816,3817,624,3818,10801],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}