Some time ago, the company I work for decided to introduce a new way of assessing employees. According to the new rules, in any team with more than 20 members, at least one person had to receive negative evaluation, and at least one - an exceptional grade. Yep, the classic stick and carrot method. The originators noticed that there weren't many such large teams, so they decided to combine smaller ones and create such teams of over twenty people. They started to assign people to teams based on very weird criteria: for example, I ended up in a team with other JS programmers (6 people) and... Java programmers (16 people), managed by a Java team manager.
The employee's assessment was entirely up to the manager. There was almost no transparency in the evaluation rules.
For 2 years I worked so hard that I was close to the highest grade. The third year was even better than the previous years in terms of performance. I really had thought my work would be rated as exceptional. In the meantime, a colleague had informed me that there was an interesting position open in his team. As I'd met all the criteria, I decided to apply for this position and I was accepted. My manager at the time made an agreement with my future boss that I would be able to move to the new team in 3 months.
Time had flown and the day has come to say goodbye to the old team. However, I still had to be assessed. The assessment meeting had taken place on the last day of work in the old team, and had been scheduled to end together with the end of working day. To my surprise, I got the worst grade. Attempts to prove my progress and accomplishments had failed. The assessment was irreversible.
Disappointed, I went to speak to the new manager. He told me he had known about the assessment background: my former manager was forced by the assessment process to give someone the negative evaluation. He hadn't wanted to spoil the relationships in his team, so he had given a negative opinion to the person leaving his team. I'd calmed down a bit. Too early...
The negative assessment had its consequences: I didn't get a raise (and that year the budget was really significant), I didn't get a bonus and there were also a few minor nuisances, but the financial ones were the most devastating.
Ah, and the assessment process was terminated after 3 full years of operation due to being biased and, in many cases, unfair. And maybe because the attrition rate rose from ca. 2 per cent to over 10 per cent.
Today, two years after those events, I am still working in the "new" team. I have a new manager who is unaware of those events. Quite recently, I accidentally also found out that my teammates earn a lot more than me (wages in my company are confidential, only the salary ranges are public). That is especially frustrating when I know that in many cases I'm more involved in my work than them. And even when we get the same raises, they end up earning even more (3 per cent of 120 is more than 3 per cent of 100).
Should I ask my manager if he could give me an extra rise because of that undeserved negative evaluation? It would look like I'm asking him to make amends for someone else's fault. I know it wasn't his fault; in fact, the evaluation process itself was to blame. I'm really frustrated and have no idea how to approach this. I like my job, I like the projects I'm involved in, and I like my team even though I know that I am not treated like the others in financial terms. The only thing that bothers me is the unfairness I have become a victim of. Should I tell my manager about my concerns?
