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HR Voices is a scenario-based podcast for People Leaders who’ve actually had to make the call.
Each episode brings experienced HR and People leaders into realistic, anonymized workplace scenarios—the kind you recognize immediately. Performance issues. Messy conflicts. Investigations that don’t fit neatly into a policy box. Instead of talking about their own companies, guests react to outside cases and walk through how they’d think it through in real time.
There are no right answers here. What you’ll hear is judgment: how seasoned leaders balance risk, fairness, legal reality, and humanity when the stakes are high and the path isn’t obvious.
HR Voices is for HR, People Ops, legal, and leaders who want to hear how other smart humans actually handle employee relations—without confidentiality breaches, hypotheticals that feel fake, or a lecture on “best practices.”
riverside_margie_& rebecca_hr_voices studio
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[00:00:00] Welcome to HR Voices, a podcast where people leaders share their side of the story. We talk about the challenges they're facing, how they're addressing them, and what changes they hope to see as the workplace evolves. This podcast is sponsored by AllVoices, the all-in-one employee relations platform.
Hello, and welcome to HR Voices. I'm your host, Rebecca Taylor, and I'm here with Margie Zyble, the CHRO at UC Health Cincinnati. Margie, thank you so much for coming. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here today. Yeah. I'm so excited. Whenever I meet someone new who's down to come onto this podcast, I'm always just so excited because, you know, this is a scenario-based podcast.
It's not the same kind of ask that a lot of CHROs get, so thank you preemptively for being here and being willing to talk through this scenario with me so that we can kind of just kinda explore the different nuances of what our job is and what HR really is about, 'cause it's a lot about navigating the gray, and there's very rarely one correct answer.
Um- Yeah. Never a day that is the same, so this is like [00:01:00] real life. Yep. It's like you can never be bored because there's always something new happening. Oh, are you ready for your scenario? Deep breath. I think I am ready. Deep breath. We're gonna get through it together. So we're calling this the forced ranking fallout.
A company adopts a forced ranking system requiring managers to place 10% of employees in the lowest performance tier annually, regardless of absolute performance. A manager refuses to rank any of her team in the bottom tier, certifying in writing that all of her direct reports exceed expectations. HR faces a manager defying a company-mandated process.
Several employees who are placed in the bottom tiers by other managers file discrimination complaints, arguing the system produces racially disparate outcomes. Research HR poll s- research HR poll supports the claim. Leadership wants to defend the system. HR must advise on both the managerial insubordination and the underlying disparate impact risk.
So while this is a fabricated scenario, I feel like this is a very real scenario that's going on in a lot of different [00:02:00] organizations. So, before we dive into too many specifics about what to do when you're facing things, taking a step back, what stands out to you as the most risky or unclear right out the gate?
Yeah. I mean, I I think there's a co- there's a couple buckets of things that are going on though they are all tied around the performance management system. Um, certainly we've got manager adoption of the system and, and use of the system. But I, I think probably the bigger risk is, um, when we start to talk about disparate impact and how we're seeing the system applied to you know, uh, employees of different groups and how that's playing out.
I think there, depending on some questions, there, there could be some risk there, or it might be okay, but that's probably where I would start kinda in that second part. Yeah. Yeah, because that's kind of where it's like, okay, if there is an outsized group that's being impacted- ... that's, sort of an issue in and of itself.
That's right. Um, what about just the concept of forced [00:03:00] ranking? Do you have any reactions or thoughts about that? Um, you know, I, I do not love the language of forced ranking, so I, I came in one of my previous lives, I came from a world where we did forced ranking. Uh-huh. And I have seen it evolve, and in the current world I live in we think about it as we're providing guidance, but it's not forced.
I do think you have to provide guidance to managers because it can be hard to calibrate, and if you don't have a g- great calibration process and it's kind of a free-for-all- Yeah ... then everybody thinks their team is the best. Mm-hmm. So, I think having targets without some guidance or some framework can be a little dangerous.
I also think you know, there can be exceptions to every rule, and having a forced ranking sort of takes, makes it very black and white in a world that I don't think is always that black and white. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. And it also kinda makes me wonder it's not stated in this scenario, and again, this is fabricated, so there's always, there's always gonna be sort of some holes and things we can't follow up on, but it always makes me wonder what happens to the [00:04:00] lowest ranking people, too.
'Cause I know there are some organizations that very publicly- Yes ... cull the lowest performers, right? Yeah. So you understand why if you're a manager, you don't necessarily wanna basically choose who's gonna get removed from the company if you think that they're all exceptional, but, like, the context around what happens next also makes the ranking feel, forced is, I guess, the right term for it, but it's also hard to kind of say whether or not the result of the ranking is gonna be worth the ranking itself.
Well, and I think what, what's a little bit tricky about this scenario is you don't really know the size of the team, right? Yeah. So, uh, you know, I always think when you're a manager and you have 10 or more people, then it makes sense that you should have to some distribution, otherwise you're doing a disservice to the members of the team by not helping them understand where they stand.
When you have two people on the team, and you might have two amazing performers, that, that could be a little bit of a different discussion. So, it, it really depends on, on the context and have [00:05:00] you pulled this team as a bunch of superstars- Right ... that are running some kind of special project. I...
there's some context missing that makes it hard to know exactly what's going on. I, what I think is a little bit of a red flag is refuses, the manager refuses, which to me screams leadership i- Capability versus anything else. So yeah. Yeah. I was gonna ask you about that. So when you're-- So if this lands it on your desk, you know, you've sort of said, "Okay, maybe there are, these are, there are enough signals in here that there's something that I need to investigate.
I need to figure out what's going on." It sounds like there's the employee side of it, where, you know, there are the employees who are affected, so the employees who are ranked lower. Then there are the employees who see the disparate rankings that are there, like sort of those, outliers that are sort of not, maybe not impacted, but affected.
And then you have a leader who won't do the ranking as sort of instructed. So in your process of, you know, starting this investigation, [00:06:00] who do you talk to first, and what are you trying to kind of learn from them? Yeah, I I think probably what I'm doing first is evaluating the context, just collecting some information on the lay of the land.
Where does this team sit? How did it come to be? What some of the historical data around performance is. Is this a new manager? So I would say some of the facts that are maybe not necessarily gleaned by conversation. And then I think there is a conversation with the manager certainly. And I think really the, the place where I feel like the crux of the conversation could lie is with the one-over-one manager.
What is going on here? Because I have to envision a one-over-one manager has greater perspective on a broader team, and this is one of several teams. And i-in my experience, when I've faced something similar like this, that can also be a place where influence can happen, because you may have a more junior manager who's reporting to a more senior leader and there's [00:07:00] coaching that needs to happen on how performance management really needs to happen.
So I, I think that I don't wanna... I would hate to discount hearing the voice of the manager and why they're so dug in, 'cause it, it could be more complicated than it might appear on paper. But if I play this out based on how I've seen it play out in the past, I think the crux of the conversation really resides with that one over one.
Yeah. I agree. 'Cause it's kind of like the, you have to kinda go where the outliers are. So if they're, if they're the only one who's refusing to kind of use this system, it's just like, why? And I guess the question is, does this, would this constitute feedback to you? So does this kind of, you know, is it enough to sort of say, "Okay, maybe this is the manager that's being brave, quote unquote, to vocalize like, 'Hey, this doesn't work.
This isn't the right way to do things. This is how I'm protesting.'" Does, do you consider this sort of a note of feedback about the performance process, or do you just kind of see this as like- You [00:08:00] know, either insubordination or, or something else. A- again, I, I hate to say it, I think it depends. Yeah. Is it a new performance management system?
Are we collecting input? Is it the first year we're running it? I think if it's a long-standing process or has, has been around for a few years what's the tenure of the manager? Not so much in the specific role, but, uh, do they have more or less experience? I don't necessarily go to its feedback on the performance management system first.
I actually go to, I think it's feedback for the direct manager on how performance management works, but that's, uh, making a lot of assumptions about the stability of what surrounds them, and that, in a certain situation that might not be fair. In, in my experience, when you have outliers that are managers that are having a hard time rating their team, it's more about their self-confidence or their skill to rate their team and assess performance, and perhaps about their ability to give feedback, than it is about the system, the [00:09:00] greater system itself.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a good... It's true. It's kind of just, like, easier to, uh, it's easier to not feel like you have to put those names in than- It's conflict. Yeah. And con- con- conflict is hard to take on, and when you're not a practiced manager, you know, there's certain words you wanna use and phrases when you're giving that feedback, and if you haven't done it before, it's scary, it's hard, and the easiest out is, "My team is great."
Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's wonderful. No one's at the bottom. That's just not the way that goes. Yeah. Yeah. See, I think for me it's, like, at first I think of, I think of the manager. I think of that individual person who's not, you know, following the rules for the ranking. But then when I look and I find that it really is true that it's impacting different people, it's...
or, and that there's, sort of demographics that are being affected more than others because of the system, that to me is sort of a pattern that I wanna look a little bit, further into. So as you find this type of evidence, you know, you look through this, you [00:10:00] see, okay, yeah, you're right, bottom rankings tend to be from X, Y, Z marginal groups or whatever the situation is how do you kind of then, I guess, start to come to terms with that and then do a next step from there?
What happens next, I guess? Yeah. For sure. So I, in my mind, I almost see these as two separate scenarios. Mm-hmm. One of these scenarios is you have a manager who is choosing to rate their team very highly across the board. That feels like it's almost in a little box. And then you have a much broader problem that I think is hard to decide if it's, if it's systemic in your system and in, in the performance process, or if it's in pockets.
And that part of it is really where I think the risk lies and, and diving in deeply to the data. Is this one or two or three managers? Are they similarly situated? Is this a broader problem where you see it across the board? Because I, I think it could be a systemic issue with the performance management system.
It could be an onboarding [00:11:00] issue, where you've onboarded certain employees a certain way, and they haven't been able to perform as well. There's a lot of tentacles, I think, when we start to talk about the disparate impact piece of this, where I think there's a lot more investigation and sort of searching needed.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of what sometimes gets, like, funny about some of these scenarios is we can't look deeper than what we have. I know. But I always want to. Like, I always, I just wanna be like, "Let's say we find this, let's say we find that," but then it just gets too close to just speculation and making things up as we go.
Yeah. But I think the other... So, you know, I think you're... I do agree with you that there's two sort of incidents happening. There's the insubordination and then there's the disparate impact. What about the third? What about the employees that are filing discrimination complaints, or the employees that are like, "Hey," how do you kinda start to go about talking to them, messaging to them, figuring them out?
And then I know that we're assuming numbers here, like we could, it could be, like, volumes of people, but I guess how do you start to address the employee side of it? Yeah, [00:12:00] I mean, I I think any time an employee raises a concern, you should be taking the time to respond to them. Yeah. You should be meeting with them and talking to them, so that's more like a philosophical belief.
Yeah. And I, I think it's absolutely true here. What's hard to sift through is when they're raising discrimination complaints, is it tied to the mechanics of the system? Is it tied to the treatment by their manager? There's not enough information to really know what's discriminating against them.
Is it person? Is it process? And so I've sort of lumped them together, and this is where I think they might, to your point, they might end up being two separate issues. You might have some managers that are discriminatory in how they're behaving overtly or, you know, biased or n- Yeah ... not really realizing it.
Or you may have, like, a systemic problem in how the system itself is working, and the output is the manager appears to be discriminating in the rating even though that's, the process is not [00:13:00] really supporting, I don't know, compliance would be- Yeah ... probably the best word. Yeah. I think in my experience with some of these, like, forced ranking, systems or processes in general, usually you have to force someone into a lower ranking because whatever system you've used to rate them still doesn't give them that ranking, so you have to kind of, calibrate and adjust and actually sort of hand-select who's there, which is it sounds like that's kind of the situation that, that you're dealing with here.
So if you're an HR person who, is looking at forced ranking what guidance do you give to put kind of what best practice is in place, I guess, to make sure that the decisions that are used to force those rankings are based in something and not just in bias? Yeah. Which I know is a very big question, so.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna I wanna comment on the forced ranking, on sort of the philosophy of forced ranking first, and then I will absolutely answer your question. Yes, please do. I won't say that there is never a time and a place for [00:14:00] forced ranking. I do think, um, having forced ranking takes away autonomy of the people leaders that are sitting closest to the work.
It also limits discussion. You know, I, I in an organization that has a lot of volume-based work, I could see that maybe it's necessary because you have a lot of people doing the same job, you have big spans of controls. But I think generally there are some cons with forced ranking where I'm not sure it's always the, the wisest choice because you have to...
You... Now we're talking about how do you mitigate and create a process around allowing for forced ranking. I think when you're living in a forced ranking system, it's very process and formally structured. And so when you're evaluating performance, I think it also has to be very structured and very goals-driven with clear, measurable goals.
And I think there has to be some level of transparency because you're comparing people against each other, which I think also comes with, It can be a very [00:15:00] slippery slope- Mm-hmm ... if everybody's overachieving on the goals, and so the, the goals are in a way relative to each other versus relative to my best performance as an individual employee.
And I think there has to be a level of transparency, otherwise you have somebody who performed amazingly well and they're gonna be disappointed in their, in their rating, and that that's a retention engagement challenge. Yeah. Yeah. You're totally right. And I think the thing that's kind of hard about these types of scenarios is that things like performance can be kind of a polarizing topic, or, you know, goal setting is something that I've worked in so many different companies that goal setting is still something that isn't done perfectly.
So when you're-- I mean, and neither is performance, right? So it's like the, it, they're very, very, I think, close to people's hearts, and they're kind of sensitive topics to a lot of folks. And so that means that anything that is not a, quote, "good result" of these performances is gonna be, it's gonna feel even more charged.
People [00:16:00] are gonna have an even more emotional reaction to it. And so, as you are dealing with a scenario where a manager refuses to rank people, employees are saying that they're being discriminated against, are there any assumptions that you're trying not to make? Like how are you staying as objective as possible as HR trying to get to what the right answer might be?
I mean, I, I feel like there's two paths of information that have to be chased down before you make an assumption about which one is correct. And one of them is understanding each of the sort of individual buckets of employee experience and scenarios and the validity and facts around those scenarios, and the other is the data that's in the system.
Mm-hmm. You know, I w-wouldn't wanna dismiss, "Oh, the system is broken, and we should get rid of it." And I think you also don't wanna be dismissive of employees who have real concerns or a manager who has-- is basically manifesting a real concern- Yep ... by digging his or her heels in. I think [00:17:00] it's easy to let emotion help you choose a side, and you sort of need to collect the facts on both of those and then reconcile what feels truest based on what we're seeing here.
Yeah. I think sometimes that can be the hardest part of some of these scenarios, because HR, you have to be objective. Yes. But you're also an employee, and so you're also, kind of, you may have your own feelings and emotions about it that might be not what the policy is, but it's still your job to enforce it.
And so there's, there's always sort of these competing sort of things going on in your head. And there's a lot of competing pressures in the organization, because even, you know, you have to show a certain level of policy upholding as HR, um, but you also need to sort of be that questioner, I think, to see, like, is there something else going on here?
And kind of weighing sort of those pieces of it is really hard. And so, you know, when you look at a scenario like this, you've got the competing pressures of dealing with a manager who's being insubordinate. You have the, you know, [00:18:00] discrimination claims. How are you weighing some of the competing factors that are contributing to this?
Yeah. I mean, I, I'll go back to something we talked a little bit about earlier. Uh, the biggest thing that's missing for me from all of this is the context, right? Like- Yeah ... it's rare, I get it, if you're new in your role as an HR professional or an HR business partner, but generally speaking, you have some context on the players, on the system, on the processes of the organization, and and I would sort of put that in the category of gut instinct, right?
Mm-hmm. I, I, I've had this conversation with other people before. Like, in the chair you sit in as an HR professional, a lot of times you're seeing how lots of managers do ratings, how lots of managers do compensation planning, and you do get a feel for those that are better at differentiation or struggle more with differentiation, and that, that is also data, like valid- Yeah
qualitative data, and all of that is the context that's kind of missing from this. I [00:19:00] don't- Yeah. I think you always wanna be careful that you're not allowing bias to creep in, and that you really have the conversations, and you really listen and ask questions. But I also think you can use qualitative data that is just the broader environment of the organization, 'cause that is also influencing this entire scenario.
Yeah. Yeah, it's very true. And as you're kind of looking at some of these data points, like what are some of the patterns that you typically see repeating across situations like this? Gosh, that's a good question. I mean, I I think when I think about the manager piece of this and the disparate outcomes I think it generally, if you're in a relatively stable company, there's probably a good solid performance management system.
And so then I start to wonder what is the training and the education process for the, the people leaders in, in this organization. That's something that I certainly would be picking at, and I think- Yeah ... could be a r- a [00:20:00] repeating theme because you have multiple managers that are struggling maybe with different aspects of this, but it's all at a similar level or in a similar role, if you will.
So that says, um, something's missing for that- Yeah ... for that population. Yeah. Yeah. And when you're looking at kind of, figuring out how to best support this population, what... You know, if you're the HR person, how can HR leaders prepare other leaders to navigate situations like this too? 'Cause I don't think we have to go at it alone.
No I agree. I think what's hard about this situation is now you're at a point where, You have investigations to run. It's become more of a compliance issue and a risk for the organization. Yeah. If I step back, the way that I always like to think about people leaders is first there's an enablement phase, and then we get to move to expectations.
But the job of the people leader is probably the hardest job in the organization, and they're mostly trying to get it right. I mean- Yeah ... [00:21:00] it's a rare moment that you have someone who's, uh, actively working against the organization or against their employees. And so I think focusing on how do I help you be better at your job or have the tools and resources that you need for your job, then puts you in a better place when you have to have an accountability or an expectations conversation- Yeah
versus if it's always about what I expect first. It's sort of not leading with empathy or curiosity about where that leader is coming from, and I just, um, think it, it can be a lot harder to get where you wanna go. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It's so true, just like using empathy, using curiosity, and just trying to understand, like, what is it that, where are you stuck so that I can help you get unstuck?
That's most of- Yes ... honestly, in my experience with HR, that's most of what our day entails, just in different, you know, in different ways that that kinda shows up at work. Yeah. Um, and I love that you said that, most of us are just trying to do our best. Most people are just trying to do their best.
Like, I had an old manager when I was, you know, back in my first [00:22:00] HR job. She started every single training with "I don't believe that any of you came here today and said, 'Today I'm gonna fail.'" She's like, "And so I remember that every single time you come into my office where I have to talk to you about being late or something like this."
And I just think that's a really important thing to remember, that most of us, just as HR, as humans, are just trying to get it right. And approaching each other with a little bit more candor and maybe a little bit more grace sometimes when, even if there is a very heavy situation at hand I think is really important, because how else are we gonna then sort of be able to help each other through some of these things?
Well, and, and I also, I think the flip side of that is I would not wanna come across as a bleeding heart 'cause I am anything- Yeah ... but that. I think when you know you have someone who isn't a fit for the organization, and sometimes that doesn't mean that they're trying, they're attempting to fail, as you said.
Yeah. They're just they're not aligned with the values- It's not working ... of the organization, then you should act quickly. Like- Yes ... it, you know, I, y- you give feedback once, and [00:23:00] it's constructive and coaching, and I think there's a bit of an escalation as it's not working. Their inability to grasp is then impacting all of the other people who are trying their best and are a fit.
I'm all about fast action and direct- Yeah ... action. But I think you should mostly start with empathy. Again, it sort of comes down to context. If you know you have someone that you've been here before and they haven't learned and picked up the lesson, well, that's a different starting point than someone who's- Yeah
new in the job and has never done this before. Yeah. Well, you can empathetically manage poor performance, right? That's right. And I think there's some- sometimes you see narratives where those two k- things can't exist together, and I'm with you. I just, I firmly reject that too. It's like, you know, I don't assume that everybody shows up ready to fail.
I, I do assume that you're all here doing your best, but sometimes your best just isn't good enough for our culture and our organization, and that hurts to hear. But I think we've all been in a situation where we've either been the person who, uh, who, you know, can come out of that, [00:24:00] or we've been the person who can't.
Like, it just all depends on the culture. It's more about the environment that we're in, and not even necessarily about who we are. It's just, you know, and I think that's kinda the hard thing about, we see a lot of situations, you know, that are around performance at HR Voices, just in the sense that we created an entire performance management workflow, a performance improvement workflow for customers because they're like, "These are the things that actually are where a lot of the conflict can happen, and so we wanna make sure that we're documenting it properly."
Right. And, you know, it is, it is something that if we can sort of take steps to make that a more diligent process, a clear process, so that if an employee does get to the point where they're on a PIP and then the, they don't survive the PIP, it's clear why, and they've had more than enough time to kinda get there.
That's like, and that's sometimes just the nature of the job, but that's different from just sort of letting someone keep coasting just because you like them and you just think that they're doing their best. That's right. Well, and, and the other thing I I try to remind myself of often, and, and sometimes others, is, um, you only [00:25:00] control your own behavior.
Mm-hmm. So you can be invested in, hey, I think this is something we can fix, or this is a leader that needs some coaching, and if the leader isn't receiving it, um, or isn't in a place that they can receive it, well, that's out of your, that is out of your control, and then that leads down a different path, to your point, so.
Yeah. Yeah. And if you could believe it, we're actually at time. Um- Oh, gosh ... so I have one last question for you. Yes. And it's one that I've been asking, I've been asking everybody at the end of these conversations, 'cause I think part of what we wanna showcase just, on this podcast is just sort of all the nuances that kinda go into working in HR.
'Cause a lot of times, a lot of our work just isn't, it isn't visible to the people that it's for, right? Um, and sometimes that's a good thing. So what would you say is one assumption about HR that you think needs to be challenged? Ooh. I think- One assumption that needs to be challenged, and we also have to live into as a function is that it's not dr- data [00:26:00] driven and that it's not a true business partner. Ooh, very well said. Very well said. Well, Margie, thank you so much for being here, and thank you everybody for listening.
I hope that, you know, this is a really good conversation. Performance is something that's near and dear to my heart. It's something that we see a lot of companies trying to kind of just navigate their way through. So thank you for all your input, and thank you everybody for listening too. Thank you. Yeah.
Hope you have a good rest of your day. Bye.