|
Is
Capital One too demanding?
One
of Virginia’s fast-growing and successful companies,
Capital One Financial Corp., demands a lot of its workers.
Maybe too much. And employees are turning to the Internet
to let everyone know.
The
Falls Church based issuer of credit cards, regularly
listed on Fortune magazine’s “Best Companies
To Work For” list, has garnered unwanted headlines
of late because it has been firing employees while simultaneously
hiring thousands in Northern Virginia, Richmond and
Fredericksburg. At issue: the company’s tough employee
appraisal system that ranks all of its workers strictly
by performance. Workers complain that older employees
are targeted and that managers often don’t consider
good previous performance. The current performance evaluation
system rates peers according to numbers. Those who receive
fives are promoted. Fours stay where they are. Threes
and below are shown the door.
Employees
also complain that middle managers were duped into enforcing
the forced ranking scheme last year. Employees weren’t
given clear explanations about why they were being separated
as a ruse to keep them from retaliating in court, some
say. Since employees can’t know why they were fired
or laid off, they have trouble collecting unemployment
insurance.
About
a dozen former employees are filing discrimination complaints
with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Their
representative, Harris D. Butler III, says, “If
you cut 7.5 percent of the all-star team, and all the
left-handers leave, it’s hard not to think that
being left-handed was a factor.”
Meanwhile,
disgruntled ex-employees have found a unique way of
complaining: a Web site. CRapitalOne.com uses pictures
from China’s Cultural Revolution and its unique
URL spelling to lampoon the financial company. It’s
not all fun and games, though. CRapitalOne.com has useful
information on management-employee relations, the telephone
numbers of local lawyers and recent Virginia Employment
Commission decisions concerning unemployment insurance
benefits. “Capital One was naive to cut the capable;
arrogant to think we wouldn’t find each other,”
the Webmaster says. “We get 40 e-mails a day. It’s
like an e-union.”
Company
spokesman Hamilton Holloway says only a small percentage
of employees have been let go as a result of the performance
objectives. “Our company is based on performance,”
he says. “Our stock is based on performance. Everything
is based on performance.” The appraisal system
is likewise. “It’s objective criteria collected
on an objective basis,” Holloway says.
True,
Capital One’s rigorous insistence on performance
has led to stellar financial results and a well-received
national advertising campaign with the jingle, “What’s
in your wallet?” But if the controversy over forced
rankings for workers continues, investors and the public
alike may start asking CRapitalOne.com’s question:
“What’s in your closet?”
-
Alexander H. Haislip
Return to Virginia Business - July
2002
|
