Another item I consider a bad - in fact, poisonous - business habit is the policy some corporations take about year-end ratings - you know, like "meets," "exceeds," etc - and their prevalence. More succinctly, companies who decide that departments should provide such ratings on an enforced bell curve, much as in say a high level college math course. Only so many people can exceed, meet, and so on.

Not only can this potentially produce false ratings (we have filled our quota of this rating so we are giving you a different one) but it can create an extremely competitive atmosphere. It almost encourages fucking over your teammates to ensure that you're not unfortunate enough to be the least-best at your job, even if "least best" still means "working up to requirements and/or satisfaction." In addition I posit it's more harmful than a math class or similar; you don't get to graduate or leave the scenario at the end of a semester. Instead you are continually, for years even, competing with the same people. I think this can lead to an entrenched atmosphere of "every man for himself" as well as long-held resentment.

It also, in a weird way, makes me grateful for the obviously incompetent people. I see someone flailing and I think "well, I know who's getting 'does not meet' and it ain't me, it's this jawn."

I shouldn't have to rely on other people to be incompetent in order to feel secure about the status of my year-end review and general performance.