No More Reviews

I agree. I would say more but I think my manager reads these.

Hi Boss! 😀

Oh I do so hear you!!!!!

I also hate performance reviews, and mostly for the same reasons as you. Like you, as far as I know, there's only ever been one black (perhaps grey) mark against me (in 30-ish years of work). My current place of work has these, and they seem to have become a witch hunt, now that each division's bonus is allocated by the senior manager - who seems to get whatever is not allocated out to the workers... Imagine that! Funny how people who've been getting 4/5 (above average for the company) suddenly get 2/5 (below average for the company) - not just one, but 3 separate teams - and all of a sudden, the senior manager becomes an equity partner!

The other thing I hate is when your reviews are "calibrated" - another word for "we're going to screw you over".

EDIT: Almost forgot - there's not much use in bringing up something from 9 months ago in a review at the end of the year. Its way past the time that the employee can do anything about it, and also way past the time that the employee can get anyone to defend their position. It goes from being an "I said/He said" to "I say/You listen". Not much use to anyone.

Hi,

I totally agree with Steve on this.

Of course there is a need for some form of performance appraisal needed for employees. But this doesn't have to be in the form of endless paperwork. I think day to day or even week to week chats on a one to one basis would do just as well. It also makes the team member feel a lot more relaxed and it just conveys a more open team relationship. The manager should then perhaps every 6 months write a short and to-the-point report on each team member highlighting high and low points and these can then be used for pay reviews/bonuses etc.

Another pet hate of mine is employees expecting pay rises (and I'm not talking about "cost of living" rises) and/or bonuses. I think if the manager is doing his job correctly he should very easily be able to determine who is pulling their weight and who isn't and award accordingly and his reports should reflect this.

I'm probably in a minority with my views here but hey..it's a free world...isn't it ?

Thanks

Graeme

Right on. If I recall correctly the Business Studies book says these type of meeting should always be objective and not subjective.

At my previous company pay adjustments (if any) or bonus were always to FOLLOW the appraisal so they related, but this did not happen in practice due to the busyness of the department.

PS: It would be nice if the EU said they were a Human Rights infringement and banned them.

I also agree that this all too formalized approach has replaced the weekly round up that used to be the team meeting. To me, those should be check ins that let everyone know how the team and each member is progressing toward their goals. Recently, I was on a team where these meetings were only one up manship pileups designed only to show who could top who as the best in the room--very sad and verrrrry non-productive. When it came time for reviews once a year, bonuses were promised, but for 6 years, they never came so no one was too excited--you could get the highest rating, but it didn't mean anything--also the criteria changed every year and it was not announced until a month before reviews, so go figure whether you succeeded are not--what a joke:)

I agree that there's a temptation for the manager to save up everything to the annual review, sometimes long after the detail of some issues has been forgotten. But where I work we are also encouraged to have one-to-one's, e.g. on a monthly basis or even more frequently. Ideally these should be in less formal surroundings, say over a coffee.

But the annual review is good for taking a long look at how things are going, where the person feels their career is going, or not going, and whether the employer can help with technical training and other personal development stuff. The form we have to fill in from HR is far too systematic, and 3 people have to add comments and sign it off, but at least ensures you cover all the bases and if serious issues arise later, there's some record of what was discussed and decided.

The problem is the lack of object criteria against which your performance could be measured. IOW, you should be able to agree with your manager that accomplishing XYZ or ABC or DEF would constitute "excellent" performance over the coming year. Some other set of things would constitute "good" performance. Then you have to be able to set reasonable goals. And progress must be measurable.

The problem isn't the performance review. The problem is the lack of goals and criteria. The review is like a box of chocolates. 😛

...and now the problem is all fixed!

Oh, I so agree. I'm all for doing away with them along with the bell curve and the theory that when budgets are tight, it's more fair to just award merit raises equally to everyone regardless of their performance.

Steve, I couldn't agree with you more! Like you, I hate reviews. Not necessarily because it will be bad (I'm typically over average) but I believe it to be a complete waste of time to prepare for them and to have them. My manager already knows what I'm doing day in and day out for we have constant communication. If not, then it's a fault of management and not of mine.

My main reason for hating a review is the goal setting. Don't get me wrong, I believe in setting appropriate goals, but most of the time the goals I set for the year get overridden by the needs of the company. In my entire career, I have never once been able to meet even half of my goals because other priorities come up that supersede the established goals -- even the ones set by my manager! Therefore, many of the goals either get dropped or simply transferred to next year to begin the cycle all over again!

Not only do I not like being measured against goals that I have no control over whatsoever, but I also hate that my performance gets reduced to a point average. I believe that some categories should carry more weight than others based upon my position. For example, creative thinking and people skills should carry more weight than thriftiness (I don't do any purchasing) or empowering others (I don't manage others). I also do not believe that all positions can be equally compared with each other. A project manager and a help desk person have completely different responsibilities, duties, and required attributes and cannot be boiled down into an artificial comparison matrix.

OK, I'll get off my soap box now before I blow a gasket or something.

Maybe, in the ideal world, but in the real world employee raises are often determined by many managers as to who their friends are in the department, or what some skirt down the hallway is doing for them off hours. I have seen this kind of "monkey business" stuff too many times to count in the IT industry, trust me on this. This industry, unfortunately, is filled with these types of managers. Sad, but true. I call them the "Burger King" or "Red Lobster" school of management because they tend to treat IT people basically like unskilled labor. 😀

Your thoughts are well-taken, and though I would agree that constant a interchange of 'atta-boys' and 'why did you do it that way' are fine through the days, your editorial is a bit myopic in that you are not considering what happens when you work for a multi-national corporation such as I do.

Our parent company is based in Australia, with management offices located there, and in London. Thus, performance reviews are the only way we US-based executives can report to our corporate officers. Further, since we use a performance review plan where managers AND employees co-write an employee's review, this gives an excellent opportunity for employees to grade themselves, and then get feedback from their managers face-to-face.

The review sessions are also used to formulate agreed upon goals and objectives between employees and managers, and this affords an excellent 'tool' to use a year later to see if an employee set reasonable goals, and actually achieved them. In fact, this is one of the few companies I have worked for where this type of interchange helps create a cohesive team spirit among managers and employees - since both have 'blood on the table' (if you will).

If performance reviews are treated as just something to get done - yes, I agree, they are worthless. But when they are used as a tool to better both employees and managers, AND allow executive level staff to give a good 'picture' of how any remote office is functioning, they are simply put, a VITAL tool with no alternative I have seen that works.

I pity the companies where managers have no clue what employees are working on, and executives think they know whats going on - but are not really sure. These are the companies that one day find themselves out of business and wonder how it all happened. We run a very tight ship here, and it spans across the planet to all offices because of a good performance review plan.

So don't flush the idea as a whole - if its done correctly, there is no better tool for cohesion and momentum across all offices, all employees, managers and executives.

Well, I certainly agree that performance reviews once or twice a year should be done away with. Anymore, performance has nothing to do with quality and/or quantity of work - it's all about who is buddies with who. This is my opinion but most of the managers that I've had over the last few years have been fairly clueless as to how to motivate people. They used tactics like intimidation and fear to try to motivate people because they were treated like this from their superiors. I often wonder how some of these people got theese management positions.

I guess it kind of depends on how you use it. My manager and I talk almost daily about what I'm working on in an informal way, but he uses my annual performance review to try and see the forest from the trees. We look at long term goals (and accomplishments) and reevaluate priorities.