The metrics are always changing and many quarters the majority of employees do not meet goals set as they are too high and management and they are still raised the following quarter. Metrics do not measure quality of work or customer satisfaction.
QA department has tired to measure quality but that always changes and they failed to truely measure an employees work. QA department often tells management how they should conduct research and is too close to truely audit and sample employees work. Those with lower quality are given high cash bonus'. (At times they have also been found later "cheating" the metrics)
There is a culture of fear within the organization and at least 30% of the employees (bottom 30) are always fearful of being fired. You can get far within the company if you are favored by upper management but careful this may not last long. The company has a "what have you done for me lately" view on all employees so you can quickly go from being thought of a great employee to one that is headed out the door.
Research associates as a whole are treated as the bottom class of the company. Where sales are being given great incentives and have a great environment to work in the research staff is being told they need to watch budget for rewards.
