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Using sophisticated mathematics, HR departments are learning new ways to determine the value of each employee

By Stephen Baker, BusinessWeek, March 23 and 30, 2009

The chart looks like colorful pop-art doughnuts flying through space. The message, though, is anything but playful. Based on a mathematical analysis of work at an undisclosed Internet company, each circle represents an employee. Those who generate or pass along valuable information within the company are portrayed as large and dark-colored. And the others? "On a relative scale, they don't add a hell of a lot," says Elizabeth Charnock, chief executive of Cataphora, the Redwood City (Calif.) company that carried out the study for a client. The upshot for managers faced with a mandate to downsize: Small and pale circles might be a good place to start cutting.

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