The Wheel of Fortune

It is that time of the year when I have to do appraisals for the team. It means a month of hard work and ‘documentation’. The Call Centre has developed a really complicated system of working out staff pay awards that is based on ability, behaviour, Performance, and retention (whether they want to keep you or not).

It doesn’t quite take a compass, calculator and protractor to work it out, but I think that they would help. I have a feeling that the whole thing is a series of smoke and mirrors to disguise the fact that it is next to impossible to get anything like a decent pay rise.

There is a big wheel made out of card that has different coloured portions with different headings like ‘Sales Focus’, ‘Team Contribution’ and ‘Customer Rapport’ and so on. You have a one to one session with your staff, push and pull the card, then write down the numbers that are totted up to work out your ‘Competency Value’.

It’s a bit like one of those cards on weight watchers used to calculate the ‘Points’ of food, except its ‘how much bread you can have on the table’ rather than the calorific value of bread.

The process would keep Stephen Hawking amused for hours, when he isn’t spinning his wheel in Stringfeellows that is!