Okay, tonight’s blog post is going to sound a little arrogant or conceited at first glance but bear with me, I’m experiencing something of a personal crisis of faith while simultaneously wondering if perhaps I’m wrong. So if anyone has felt the way I feel right now and finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel or realized that they were wrong as perhaps I now am, please feel free to comment. I am starting to realize why fresh MBA grads have a bad reputation and it isn’t because they are wrong but instead lack tact.

Within our own managerial ranks we have set merit increases artificially low in order not to exceed our departmental budget because there will simply not be enough money to give all the raises that are due. The problem is that this causes supervisors to inflate and pad reviews in order to get the merit increase that they, the immediate supervisor, believes the employee should have or simply give less than an employee deserves. When challenged on this decision the department manager stated that he needed a years worth of historical data by which to base his decision for future merit ranges.

Here is the rub, I see from what I have been taught that the management team should have practiced the art of projection with a defined margin of error. It would have been a small task to have all supervisors rate what they feel that their employees would get over the course of the year as justified through historical performance reviews which we keep on file as well as projected performance. As people are often creatures of habit and substantial change is hard to come by these numbers would likely have been fairly accurate, management could then set a margin of error or deviation in order as to not exceed the budget. Of course this likely would have resulted in slightly lower than the maximum possible raise given to everyone but it would have raised the average raise given considerably. When arguing this point I was met with blank stares and the initial argument was restated as if I did not just offer an alternative. This lead me to some amount of personal frustration because I can plainly see how this would work and what is more I have performed an exercise as this myself in school and I did so at work in order to demonstrate my point.

The issue is that my argument seems lost on those who work with me. Their backgrounds are in criminal justice and words like “projection analysis” or “standard deviation” seem to be meaningless. The byproduct? Seeing the way something should be but instead having to enforce and work within a system that I full well know to be short sighted and narrow. Any thoughts anyone?