Can we post employee productivity metrics? 03-05-2008

One of my operations managers wants to post employee productivity metrics on a commonly viewed board, ranking by name from the best to the worst. I have a concern about this from a privacy standpoint. His employees have technician numbers, and I would prefer that he post the data using those numbers (not everyone knows each other's tech number). I'm concerned more so for the employee at the bottom of the list, who everyone will know is not making his numbers and if he continues to miss his goals he could be subject to termination. The manager wants to create a competitive environment. I think he can do that without names only numbers. Do you have any thoughts on the practice or have there been cases which challenged this practice? Thank you.

Rita Risser replies:

To be on the safest side, you should post by number. Productivity information generally is not considered private. Circulating it is done all the time with salespeople. However, conceivably it can lead to harassment, and if the lowest person happens to be minority in some way - female, older, etc. - it might lead to discriminatory comments. So I would limit to numbers.

Good luck.

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