Performance Management system at Thomson Reuters

About Organization
Thomson Reuters Corporation is a multinational mass media and information firm with operational
headquarters at 3 Times Square in Manhattan, New York City.It is organized around eight divisions
across financial, media, legal and science industries.

How are goals set?

Thomson Reuters follows the conventional hierarchical structure and goals are set in one-to-one
discussion with reporting manager at the start of the year. The individual goals are based on two
aspects i.e. Organizations objective and individuals roles and responsibility.

How is the appraisal done?

Appraisal is done in two parts:

a. Mid-year Appraisal: Non-evaluative appraisal where employee is guided by its immediate

reporting manager.
b. End-year Appraisal: Evaluative appraisal where employee is rated on a scale of 5 (1-lowest
rating to 5-highest rating) on the basis of his/her performance during the year.

What is the name/type of the performance management system?

Forced ranking system of appraisal which is also known as bell curve appraisal system. It refers to a
normal distribution of performance among the workforcetypically as measured by performance
ratings. The employees are categorized in five categories as follows:

% of
Rating Name employee
1 Not Achieved 5%
2 Under Achieved 15%
3 Achieved 60%
4 Exceeded 15%
5 Far-Exceed 5%

Does the appraisal link to pay, if so how?

Yes, the appraisal is definitely linked to the pay as not achieved employee gets 4-7% raise in pay and
Far-Exceeded employee gets 16-25% raise in pay.

How do you feel about the performance appraisal?

No, I think it is not an appropriate appraisal system as it is forced distribution so sometimes

managers need to put employees in specific gradients just for the sake of bell curve requirements.

Do you think this process should be dropped?

Yes, While there is an ongoing debate on the bell curve based normalization methodology, an
additional 360 feedback may help ease some of these doubts. Employees desired and actual
performance can be viewed through a bell curve in dynamic Appraisal dashboards. The bell curve for
performance appraisal can be normalized or used to view the performance gaps of employees.

Prepared by: Jyotika Wasan

Roll No: A043