Companies are always looking for ways to save money and drive more sales.

Unfortunately, upper management is often so out of touch with how things really work, that their changes cause more problems than they fix.

When the company the person in this story worked for tried to make sweeping changes, his boss told upper management that he would comply, which would result in 80% of the staff getting fired.

Check it out.

These are the new metrics? Ok! Everyone is fired!

So, I work at a large company. Fortune 50 company.

But, like everywhere, management comes up with one size fits none metrics.

The latest was revealed to us by our manager, who surprisingly is the hero of this story.

It has always been the metric that if you fell below 70% of your quota on a quota eligible role, you risk being put on a Performance Review Plan.

It is also well known that anyone getting on a PRP is pretty much toast.

Either you get fired for failing the PRP, or you are first on the next layoff list.

Those newbies are cheaper.

And usually, they replace you with a newbie fresh out of college, in one of the lower 2 bands.

My particular team is made up of all senior people.

Every one of us is in one of the top 2 skill grades.

So we know we are a target, which is insane, as all of us engage the C-suite at other very large fortune 500 companies and act as trusted advisors.

We cannot be replaced by a new grad with intern level performance.

In person meetings for big companies like this means big changes are coming.

So our intrepid hero, my boss, is pulled into a 2 day seminar about 2 months ago that goes all the way to the General Manager of Sales, Americas.

Several senior HR managers are there too. It is a rare in person meeting, so people are cautious, but at least they know it is not a mass layoff kind of deal, as the first day is about the path forward and how important our division is to the company strategy.

They go on about how our division is the front line of expanding sales in our Partner Program, to take it from 60% of revenue to 85% of revenue, with 75% of new growth expected to come from the Partner Channels.

The company absolute is relying on our division and our skilled staff to deliver on that goal.

The second day is different, however.

In the afternoon, they lay out the new plan for technical sellers: 80% attainment per year, and Backdating 2 years.

It is a rare in person meeting, so people are cautious, but

My manager goes into “I am just asking questions mode”.

He immediately saw the problem.

“So, let me understand, if last year they hit 100% attainment (and 75% of the team did) but the previous year they hit 79%, then they are on a PRP?”

HR hems and haws… well yes, that is how it would work.

“I see. And there is no exceptions?”

The GM speaks up. “That’s correct. Everyone must be a top performer. No Exceptions“

This manager has guts.

My manager starts gathering his things up. “Would you mind if I skipped the rest of the day? I have a lot of work to do, apparently.”

The GM looks at him. “Well, no, we have more to cover. What is so urgent?’

He looks at the GM, and maliciously complies with the stated metrics. “Based on the metrics and the No Exceptions Rule, I have to prepare PRP’s for my entire team. No Exceptions. I will need to start the Open Headcount to hire replacements for everyone too.”

The GM better figure out his mistake fast.

The GM looks confused, attempting to digest this new information.

Most of the rest of the managers stick their hands up. “We need to go too, we need to write up PRP’s for all our people too, and submit Open Headcounts.”

A quick count shows that 80% of our division would be on a PRP.

Given the failure rate, that means about 70% of the team will be fired, 10% will be laid off, and 20% will remain.

For the growth strategy of the company… The tip of the spear in Partner sales.

My boss points out that retention of personnel and reduced turnover is part of the Roll Up Objectives, as well as attainment of his reports.

That means he will be PRPed, as will his manager, and her manager… all the way up the chain.

NO EXCEPTIONS.

Look how fast they backtrack.

The meeting wraps up after the discussion dies down and the GM says they are not implementing this now, but in a few months…

In those two months there are more online meetings, questions asked, more data pulled from the HR systems, meetings with HR and Legal who is now very interested in this plan of theirs… culminating in a meeting this last Monday, where the revised plan is revealed.

A new “Exceptions” plan has been put in place, at the insistence of the Legal Department.

Gone is the informal “Put together a package to be evaluated for an optional Exception for your employee.”

Now, there is a set of formal Exceptions that cover a number of categories: Legal ones like taking Family Leave or Medical Short Term Disability in the last three, and functional ones like having been moved between departments or job titles or having a non-quota designation in the last two years.

Plenty of exceptions to go around.

If the quota plan changed significantly or had a Metric with no previous history to set the target. There is 10 or 12 categories, depending if you count the overlaps.

An exception resets the timer to the next calendar year. So, if someone qualifies in January, they are off the hook until NEXT January.

Turns out everyone in the division now qualifies for one or more of those exceptions…

Imagine that!

I guess Legal should have looked at this before they tried to implement it.

Epilogue: Turns out HR did not do an analysis of how many people would be impacted in our division as the numbers were done worldwide over 100K employees with quota, not by department.

Their number said 11% of us would end up on PRPs. (Let’s not get into how they are trying to reduce headcount by driving people into leaving or retiring early)

Also, when Legal found out they were backdating the requirement they went ballistic.

Legal also went spare when they saw no exceptions for federally protected leave like Family or Medical disability.

Gotta love my boss, he looks out for us, often by maliciously complying with stupid requirements.

It must be a requirement to make up crazy metrics in order to be made upper management in every company.

Let’s see what the people in the comments say about this story.

Labor laws are but a minor inconvenience.

Yeah, any excuse to save money.

Every company could benefit from something like this.

Yeah, backdating metrics is insane.

This is a real manager.

Sometimes leadership means standing up to management.

That is exactly what this manager did, and he saved his people a lot of headaches.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.