Curved Performance Review - Software Engineer Sage Employee Review

Thanks for your review. As a current colleague, I am sure you are aware that our ambition is to build and provide the best technology and services for the world’s Business Builders. Our ambitions and aspiration for our business is huge. We also need to create a high performing culture. Our performance management process is designed to increase the effectiveness of our colleagues and therefore the organisational capability to deliver strong levels of performance. It focuses on results and behaviours, allowing us to reward success and inspire our 13,500 colleagues in a consistent way. Our People Business Partners and Learning & Development Centre of Expertise support our managers in ensuring all colleagues performance ratings are calibrated to objectively help them with consistency, levelling and fairness. We do have guidelines for the distribution of performance ratings (which are available to all colleagues to see via the Sage Academy). We expect managers to understand these guidelines and consider these in the context of business results. Our global performance data for FY16 shows 86% of our colleagues were rated as ‘Meeting Expectations’ or above, showing us that the performance distribution curve was slightly skewed to the right. We anticipate around 15% of our colleagues may fall short of requirements, needing improvement which may be supported through a Performance Development Plan or Performance Improvement Plan to get back them on track. Continued unsatisfactory performance may result in a colleague leaving the business. This approach to managing performance is no different to the majority of established organisations with ambitions to drive performance and ensure the sustainability of their business in the future. In FY17 we launched a leadership development programme ‘Leading at Sage’ which will aim to develop the skills and behaviours of all 2,000 Sage Managers. Our ambition is to ensure that every day our Managers challenge and support our colleagues to do their best. We want Managers to quickly identify and address low levels of performance and recognize and appreciate those that go ‘above and beyond’. We hope that this counteracts some of the negativity you describe in your review, as managers continue to improve their ability to spot this type of behaviour. Sage prides itself on rewarding colleagues for high performance and offers a range of competitive merit incentives for high performance including the annual Platinum Elite incentive. In February 2017, 120 high performing colleagues and their partners enjoyed a luxury holiday in Dubai. Plans are already in place for the lucky colleagues who’ll be selected to attend the 2018 incentive which will be hosted in Mexico. Thanks again for your feedback.