Coaching is not a purpose of a performance review. The coaching and communication should be an ongoing process that happens before the review. Problems should be brought up early enough that you have a chance to change or improve before it gets to the point of being written in a review. If this doesn't happen, it's a sign that the manager is either terrible at communication, not even trying to coach and improve their employees, or even sabotaging you on purpose.
Instead, the purpose of performance reviews is documentation. It can be for good or for bad, depending on the person's performance. It makes info available to others and preserves it in case you transfer departments, your manager leaves, etc. Like any other documentation, it creates overhead, but you have to weigh that against the value it provides, and IMHO that's what should determine whether you do it (and how often).
My last review, the head of our division got really angry with me and gave me a very negative, punitive review.
What I am infuriated about is that never in that few years did I receive any negative feedback, and I tried to do exactly what our subdivision had decided as a group to do, and what the immediate superior had wanted. My last review was glowing, perfect. So I go from a perfect review to being treated like a failure, fireable, with no negative feedback in the interim.
Imagine if you in your area had discussed things, come to consensus decisions, you were willing to do everything asked of you, and then four years later someone higher up singles you out and yells at you for not doing what you're supposed to etc. As if you've been getting feedback that whole time.
The worst part of this is that I know someone in our area is close friends with this division head and basically complains about everyone except one person in our area.
So now I have this negative review, as if I were just being lazy, even impaired in my duties, and not doing my part when the whole time I just thought I was doing what we were supposed to.
It's depressing as hell to me, and also angering.
I was more or less asked to quit (coincidently I was planning to hand my notice in that day anyway) by the CEO. Never once had the CEO actually pulled me aside or talked to me about his perceived problems with me. He was perfectly happy with the quantity and quality of work I put out, but apparently there were cultural and attitude issues or something.
I was supposed to have a performance review/catchup every 3 months, I was very low contact with the CEO as he worked remotely and traveled a lot. I had never heard any problems from my supervisor before this final meeting with the CEO.
It was pretty shitty when he started bringing up things that he had problems with that happened 3 or 6 months ago. Things that I had never gotten more than a snarky slack message about.
Maybe if I had had those reviews, I would've worked on whatever issues he had, I may have been a happier employee and not wanted to quit, and he may have ended up with a nicer employee he didn't want to fire.
It really pissed me off and unfortunately (for both of us, really), I never got to tell him how I felt about the whole situation, as I wanted to get a good reference for my next job (which incidentally pays double what I was earning).
I can't imagine working in a place that yells at me - that would be the final nail in the coffin where I would that that person everything I think of them and their inaptitude to "manage". I guess that's why I no longer punch the clock.
As you have noticed, you can output the same quality of work and it can be seen as very good or not so good at different times, or with different people, because feelings.
Let's talk about surprises. If you have discharged supervisory responsibilities adequately throughout the year, holding regular one- on-one meetings and providing guidance when needed, there should never be surprises at a performance, right? Wrong. When you are using the worksheet, sometimes you come up with a message that will startle you. So what do you do? You're faced with either delivering the message or not, but if the purpose of the review is to improve your subordinate's performance, you must deliver it. Preferably, a review should not contain any surprises, but if you uncover one, swallow hard and bring it up.
If a manager discovers a long-standing issue whilst preparing for the performance review, then yes, they absolutely must "swallow hard and bring it up".
But not having noticed or provided feedback about that issue at any point in the past is still a failure of management.
If it means you have to let someone have a neutral review that they don't deserve... swallow hard, and start managing after the review is done.
Remember that your employees will be interpreting the review in light of the corporate culture, which they are fully aware of. They will also know whether the problem that you discovered is real or not.
I think that's the moment the "failure" is realized.
I hear that a lot and tend to agree with the statement. I even used to say it in the opposite "If I get a bad review, that's a signal that I need a new job, because I think I'm doing well and I must have a terrible manager if he'd wait a whole year to tell me otherwise".
And though I'm going to counter it, it's not inaccurate -- an employee shouldn't land in a review expecting that they've been doing wonderfully only to find out that they've been stinking up the place (or vice-versa), but the best manager that I have ever had, Lou, did surprise me at my first review. I wrote about it in another comment on this post so I won't rehash it, but I came to understand this as one of the benefits of performance review time.
Managers are rarely thinking about ways that a top-performing employee can improve, but everyone has something they can improve and a good manager will provide feedback to a staff member if there are areas that they, and others are noticing, that the employee may not be seeing. Because "top performers" don't require the attention that other staff might, a formal review may be the only time that a manager really takes the time to think about them in the context of "improvement". In addition, it's easier to bring up areas of improvement during this time, because it is set aside as one of the purposes of a formal review. In the couple of decades that I've been working, I've had two managers offer me anything in the way of "areas for improvement" -- both times were at reviews -- outside of a review it has never come up.
So yes, it is obscene for a manager to wait until review time to bring up a year's worth of failures, but being surprised by a bit of negative feedback -- provided it's not "Fix this or your getting a pink-slip" kind of feedback, isn't necessarily a management failure. It was quite helpful to me and I count Lou among about 3 people who I feel honored to have known[0] because their impact, caring and advice was life-changing for me.
[0] The other two were my HS programming teacher (who's class I enjoyed in Junior High), the late, great, Mr. Dzwonkiewicz who made me love writing software at a young age, and the woman who cured my social anxiety and made me enjoy public speaking -- the director of To Kill a Mockingbird that I performed in as a young teenager. Her name, though, escapes me. :)
This exactly. I've had two and half performance improvement plans in my 20 years.
1. My performance and attitude really did suck. I had been at a company too long (9 years), raises were anemic and the bonuses had gotten cut over the years to the point that in year 9 I only made $7K more than I did in year 2. My skillset had atrophied because I was both dealing with personal issues and concentrating on other "working hobbies" where I was making extra money. It was a horrible cycle. The further behind I fell salary wise, the worse my attitude got. I finally left 10 years ago and learned a lot from that mistake.
2. The second time (two jobs later, the company I worked for after the first event went out of business) wasn't because of performance but because I stepped on the wrong coworkers toes - a team lead that wasn't my manager. I learned this time around. I played the political game long enough after the PIP to get a set of skills I wanted (about three months) and left and got another job making 25K more. I did learn some political skills from that experience.
3. I went to another company where I was hired by a manager who was told by his manager to bring people in who could "affect change". The old guard won over, my manager's manager was laid off and my manager was forced out three months later. I got a bad review from my new manager - as did everyone my manager had hired - and we all left within 3 months. This time I left for $13k more and got a job as a team lead.
- I was now working for a company that wasn't a software company, I was brought in to create a modern software department and then we got acquired and the new edict was that they "didn't want to be a Software company". But they did need at least two major projects done that I was responsible for, but they would only let me hire contractors and the red tape to get anything done was ridiculous. After realizing I was going to be made the fall guy and getting a preview of what my review was going to be, I started looking for another job and had one in 10 days making $7K more with less official responsibility but more decision making ability and I'm able to get more done with no red tape (i.e. I'm admin for AWS)
My official PIP at job 2 happened about four years ago. Since then and three jobs later, I'm making 40K more and I am a lot smarter politically now.
You don't just staple your semester of class notes together and hand that in as your final paper.
A good performance review will identify trends, make recommendations, and use examples while still separating the signal from the noise.
Today I have my own company and I try to hire the same type of person. It is a profile increasingly hard to find. Someone who "needs" a review is typically not a good fit for my management style, and someone who can anticipate the needs of my business I try very hard to retain.
Reviews are important for someone with whom you don’t share a lot of built in cultural cues. Your experience with this working style has been positive, because you were born and raised speaking the jargon. If they come from a different background, they may not actually know what is important for the company because they haven’t spent their whole life interpreting these cultural cues.
This is what we call a “blind spot” — you have had success with your working style, and start to assume it’s the only effective way to do the work. I promise you it is not, and as a manager you should be doing more to communicate needs/value opportunities to your direct reports. Your view of what those are may be different from theirs.
After that, he spoke about figuring out how to provide the most value for the business. I've had a 25+ year career and can verify that everyone should follow this advice.
Whatever hidden biases we are concerned about in the workplace, they all pale in comparison to the metric of fulfilling the purpose of the company. It took me a few years to realize that businesses were less interested in paying me because I was smart and could solve hard problems and more interested in how I could measure and move the purposes of the company.
The only direct value a manager provides to a company is a regular calibration of employee purpose with the purpose of the business. This is best done with regular 1-on-1s, not through semi-annual reviews.
There are other indirect things that a good manager brings to the table which mostly revolve around increasing employee happiness and satisfaction, but all of it pales in comparison to aligning employee and company purpose.
I am not sure this is true to the extent that people want it to be. You see the main benefits of diversity when groups of users use products in different ways depending on who they are. However, a large majority of products are used the same way by all people (almost all b2b products / services that I can think of and many if not most consumer products / services), so for those products I'm not sure it matters who your creators or developers are as long as they understand the industry they are making products for and they talk to users.
I can see the benefit in having a diverse workforce when it comes to discovering new markets or uses for technologies or products, but I think it would be far more important to shoot for having people from a variety of industries and backgrounds on your team to spot these opportunities as opposed to trying to preferentially hire minorities, women, parents, the elderly, lgbt, etc regardless of their backgrounds.
That being said, I do agree that communicating cultural values, mission, and expectations regularly is very, very important as many people have a suboptimal idea of how their work meshes with overall goals of the organization and what is expected of them. Regularly checking in with direct reports can help them internalize these ideas better.
After decades in the industry, I'm comfortable that my success is repeatable (as I have done) and is the most effective way to do the work. As if there's a debate, I'm really surprised by the endless process and bad management advice circulating on the web, among the good. "This hasn't killed my company yet and I'm happy with what we have" is the refrain from small and large companies wasting time and effort (with things like scheduled reviews). Talented Managers aren't supposed to be listeners, unless you're trapped in a byzantine/hobbesian org (these emerge in different tiers).
> Reviews are important for someone with whom you don’t share a lot of built in cultural cues.
No, they aren't. They are important for you to set standards of accountability, at best...unless you really don't have power to do anything about it, which I've seen. You don't change their culture and they don't change yours, regardless of what you tell yourself. The job description and company-necessary responsibilities aren't changing based on the person. I'm not sure there's any value in going on about it, this kind of thinking is just madness.
If you're worried about building products that appeal to the indolent and apathetic, just look at the entertainment industry, where actors and screenwriters work very very long hours to produce content that reliably keeps the indolent and apathetic entertained.
If you're just worried about diversity, I assure you that there are plenty of husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, and even single women, as well as both men and women of all ethnic and national backgrounds, who are diligent and conscientious.
I prefer dealing with people to dealing with black-boxes.
Anyone with your profile should run their own business. It's unrealistic to expect somebody to work long hours, over-deliver for "maybe someday"-promises. People aren't as idealistic as they used to be because they were taken advantage of and learned from it.
The worst case scenario of my own business is the whole thing crashing and me having to reorganize my life to accommodate whatever job I can find before my emergency fund runs out.
The worst case scenario for being an employee is getting fired. Pretty much the same outcome but much, much harder to hit.
If I want to start a family or just have a stable enough career to (essentially) never worry about going broke, I'll take the latter. That personality profile just makes keeping a job as simple as hitting the bare minimum requirements (which you habitually blaze past).
Those of us that are trying to build high-performing organizations will still avoid and remove those types of people. And we will continue to reward and not take advantage of our people to fill our end of the bargain.
Further, those of us that are also highly self-motivated will continue to leave bad situations, not become slackers in response to being taken advantage of.
When I was broke and had no connections, I was willing to work the way you described.
Now that I have options, I'm not willing to expend that energy when I could save it for gym, girlfriend, self-education after hours, etc.
If I'm broke and need to switch to another industry or you're paying me multiple times my next best offer I'll do that.
Otherwise, no, my manager needs to do his job instead of asking me to do it for him
That said I'm now entering a graduate school and am willing to do that in this context because I'm intrinsically interested in learning the applied math I'll be working on
Software jobs, no
You would probably need to hire people who are interested in running their own business im a few years and mentor them towards that end to get that kind of commitment in my opinion
If your organization gets large enough, then out of necessity, you will have many different managers with many different styles. That is usually the point when a performance review system needs to become more formalized - it's important to be sure that in some ways, all managers are treating their reports similarly, even if it means some of them changing their default management style.
Looking for someone to "anticipate the needs of my business" is great, but how do you respond to someone who makes a mistake or pursues a strategy different from your ideal? Do you fire them on the spot like the emperor or learn from it. If it's the later, I got news for you; you're doing reviews.
"I delivered results that met or exceeded expectations." Gee - wouldn't it be nice to know this without waiting 20+ years to look back and assess the entire composition of your career? It's also super handy to self-assess with the eroding benefit of time. The most brutal performance assessment I ever had radically changed the trajectory of my life, and looking back on others who stayed the same path shows it was ultimately net-positive for me. You seem pretty satisfied with how things have turned out, but just imagine what you could have accomplished with a little feedback, such a waste of potential...
Blame the economic cycle. I would assume, your company is self-funded, profitable and being run with efficiency in mind. Unfortunately, in the current economy you just can't compete salary-wise with companies that focus on raising, bloating the headcount, raising more, playing hocus-pocus with the "cost of revenue" line and doing a spectacular exit. And as an employee, if playing a hipster infant who loves his boss and depends on him pays 2x more than hard work and initiative, well, I'm sorry to say that, but I'll go where the money is.
That said, you might be able to find that type if you offer more equity or some revenue-based incentives or look into partnering with other small business owners rather than trying to find someone to work under you.
If the employer pays a generous salary for work done well, I don't see what the problem is.
Feedback is a gift. Without people around you to give honest, brutal feedback, you have no idea if you are really doing a good job or not.
There's a great podcast episode from Adam Grant's WorkLife about criticism that's worth listening to: https://www.ted.com/talks/worklife_with_adam_grant_dear_bill...
If you want employees to act the way you want, either give them stock, pay them significantly more, or give them long term, multi-year employment contracts. If you expect to get something (employees going above and beyond) for nothing, you are entitled.
Only in an employee's market.
Are there any specific questions you ask?
I like to ask about their passions outside of work. Video games? Sports? Communities they may be a part of?
I am not looking for passions that align with the company, I am looking for passion itself. Does this person like to dig into the details and figure out how something works and how they can make it better or do they just like something and not show much deeper interest? Do they tinker or try to make things better on the things they are passionate about? Do they even have things they are passionate about? (You'd be surprised how many people can't really answer this question, even in casual conversation.)
It's not full proof, but I've found that people that go the extra mile, people that are passionate and inquisitive and not always happy with the status quo, are people that are more likely to take the initiative when working on a project for me. At that point, it's my job to spark their interest in the product so they will (hopefully) apply that passion in the same way.
I think that's a reasonable position. My company treats me as a human resource, I treat my company like my client who writes checks for the work I put in.
You're getting a lot of crap for this statement ranging from it being a bias dog-whistle to it being an indicator that you're expecting too much.
I didn't find either to be the case in reading what you wrote. My dad, too, was a business owner and growing up he pushed the same kinds of values onto me. He married my mom at 19, moved out of a two-bedroom house with 7 siblings (he never had his own room, slept on the living room couch), took a job as a union construction worker out of high-school, attended college up to his senior year but didn't graduate and ended up starting a manufacturing business supporting the automotive industry in Detroit. He's wealthy and retired, now.
I started a few businesses, but decided against them over time and realized that I really didn't like the whole "running a business". I like to write software and learning about technology and programming. Anything that takes me away from that makes me less happy. The ancillary (taxes, accounting, management, etc) that owning a business entails wasn't for me. I "put in long hours"[0], but I like to spend those hours doing the one specific thing that I love doing and I'm paid well enough that I have no desire to strike out on my own in the hopes that I can make buckets more (but in the greater likelihood that I'll have less reliable income).
As for the bias dog-whistle of these sorts of traits belonging only to white, young, men ... I find those statements to be curiously biased, as well. I have worked at several different companies on teams with women and men of both races and ages ranging from around 25 to around 57 -- yes, in tech, in Detroit. I haven't found that these traits vary based on race, gender or even age. The hardest working manager (which I wrote about in my last comment on this post) was almost 60, the guy I routinely went to when I desperately needed something to actually get "done" was a soft-spoken PoC gentleman of around 30 and when a technical project manager was forced upon me, I begged for a very overworked black woman on the PM team[1]. Anecdotal as my experiences are even social class wasn't a particular limiting factor -- I used to get advice from the "soft-spoken gentleman"[2] about kids and he revealed to me that he was the only of his brothers and sisters to go to college, that he's been pushing that on his kids and that his parents and his family ridiculed (and still ridicule) him for choosing to seek higher education.
Sure, there's no denying that women (of a certain age) get pregnant and that this is a problem for some business owners. It's never been a problem at any of the places that I have worked, personally, but I can imagine it does happen despite it being both illegal (and morally wrong IMHO). Outside of that, I often wonder if the over-sensitivity to "bias" ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My dad's company was interesting -- they were often the coordinator among several small business to outfit a large manufacturing operation. As a result, during my childhood, I spent a lot of time around a lot of small business owners. Every one of my father's many friends was a business contact and owner of some other outfit. Many of them were old enough to have grown up at a time when casual racism and sexism was normal, my father in particular. My parents raised us in a manner that when I first entered the real world, I was surprised that there were still people out there who thought that way. Growing up around these business owners I knew one thing about hiring, the concerns "Can the person do the job to the level I expect and at a price I can afford to pay them?" and "Good God, payroll taxes are expensive!" Of the business owners, only one had hiring practices that were unusual, and possibly illegal -- this was a manufacturer who had only women working at his plant. I'm not sure if it was intentional or it just worked out that way, but I do know that he synchronized schedules with the elementary, junior and high schools, the work was light-weight assembly, paid minimum wage, and AFAIK, all of his employees were former stay-at-home moms.
[0] I do that a lot less, now, but that's mainly because the job that I have doesn't require that of me. That doesn't necessarily mean I don't put in long hours, I just put those extra hours into projects that I want to work on instead of projects that my job wants me to work on.
[1] So did everyone else, which was why she was so over worked.
[2] I know he reads HN so I'm avoiding his name on purpose -- he's still a friend and I don't have permission to tell this story. The "soft-spoken" bit comes from a conversation I had with him about being more assertive. He'll know who he is and can out himself if he wants to.
I agree that performance reviews aren't particularly helpful because feedback should be delivered as you go, in the moment, with actionable and relevant examples.
And there is a big difference between people that can and people that can't.
If your significant other reminded you to go to the grocery store, would you get a general idea of what she wanted and go get a bunch of stuff you know y'all need, even if it isn't on the list? Or would you only get the exact things she wrote on the list and nothing else, even though if you applied some initiative you'd realize that she wanted to make pancakes and she forgot to put milk on the list so you go ahead and grab the milk also.
It seems obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people stick exactly to the list and don't take that initiative.
Alas it even caused me harm in college, teachers weren't very welcoming my enthusiasm.
If you've been giving them actionable feedback throughout the year, then it should be as simple as "here is your new salary and your new title" and no one should be surprised about anything.
(Not to defend performance reviews explicitly--there may be a much better approach that accomplishes the same goal)
IME reviews are like icebergs: the conversation is the easy part and pretty small. But there's a lot going on behind the scenes throughout the year, and it's useful to have a process to base that off of. For instance, someone has to balance your recommendation for your employee's new salary and title against your peer's recommendation for their employee's new salary and title. And so your performance review information has to be sufficient to make that case to your management.
Not one sentence about my work as a software engineer; not one sentence about specific interactions that were problematic, or whether or not I had been reported for anything. Just vague as can be.
Performance reviews, in my experience, have been very heavily weighted towards politics over underlying performance.
Companies are using performance reviews to try to tackle two things: Compensation (bonuses, promotions) & feedback.
Compensation and feedback should not be lumped into one event.
If the company is giving individual bonuses they can and should be tied to tangible outcomes anyway or it's just going to be a source of even more office politicking (i mean it's inescapable either way but it's a more vs less thing).
The bigger the company the more likely it is to have very elaborate ass coverage when it comes to these things. So, keep in mind that it might be less about you and more about them when you are having that conversation. They are required to have that conversation with you. It's not optional; it's a box that must be ticked.
However, performance reviews are not necessarily a bad thing and I've had some great managers give me great advice. I would just add that a good manager would not wait until the review if things aren't going great and some of the best managers I worked with made a point out of doing regular one on ones. Coaching happens outside of performance reviews. Performance reviews are also your opportunity to speak up. I once pointed out that I had nothing but good reviews but no recent raise. It went up the chain, they checked their records, and I got my raise. It was a modest one but it felt important to me. These things work both ways.
I tend to work with people from East Coast finance world, and they not too keen on the touchy feely story telling stuff. Its sort of expected that you have to have thick skin and get to the point.
Reviews can also be an opportunity for the direct report to get career plans in writing from their boss. For instance, if you want a promotion to X, the result of the review may be a written plan by your boss on how you can achieve that promotion.
Otherwise, I'd love some examples of what is discussed in your performance reviews.
Why do you need a formal, periodic review process for this? If you seek feedback, you're asking for it regularly, right? If you have feedback for someone, you just tell them, no?
This is what the dude was saying: We have teams of creative people who crave feedback, of people who want to learn and grow. Let’s not stifle them with bureaucracy.
I've lived through unfair, biased and unhelpful perf reviews, I know what it's like to have this sky beam open up out of nowhere and vaporize you over absurd nonsense, but in a company of > 100 people you need a paper record of performance.
If you're a VP and suddenly someone asks, "Hey, can you promote or fire Person X?" What are you to go off of? Just a manager's recommendation? And you think perf reviews are biased?
Unfair performance reviews are usually a byproduct of bad managers. For ex: I knew fellow managers who never told reports what they were doing wrong, they'd wait til the end-of-the-year review and write vicious stuff. Why? It was hard to say face-to-face.
That's cowardly and not good mgt: you meet weekly or biweekly to discuss all issues, a well-run perf review is a boring rubber stamp on the 25 things you've been discussing all year.
This author suggests that employees present managers "handwritten notes" of their performance "in a notebook every 6-12 months." Guess what-- that's a performance review! As if the problem w/perf reviews was the formality of the process and not the human judgment being applied.
Again, I get it: performance reviews suck. But I think it's not the paperwork or the process, it's that management can be very inept at evaluating talent periodically, regardless of how that process is run.
Unfortunately, it's hard to run a company of > 100 people without written records of performance (especially if someone sues).
This is why I don't work for large orgs anymore. If you can't trust the manager's recommendation then why is that person a manager, in a position of power over people's lives? It's almost like acknowledging that you're too big to know whether your people can be trusted or not, so you need formalized checks and balances. I get that this in fact may be reality, and I also get that we need big companies to create many of these cool things modernity has given us, but man I have no desire at all to be part of such a thing.
People come into positions of authority for very varied reasons. Some might be very technically apt, others might have earned the trust of the founders or some were simply the only people available in a period of rapid growth. You absolutely cannot trust human nature, abuse and incompetence is always a risk and startups are not magically immune.
What might happen in a small company is that a bad manager is so obviously inadequate and has such a significant relative impact over the company that it's easily spotted and fixed without a formal system. But there are no guarantees, see for example the case of Sunny Balwani, a painfully incompetent software guy running the engineering department of a biotech startup, simply because he was the boyfriend of the CEO. He clung on as Theranos valuation balloned to a $10 billion and only got out after the company failed for essentially tech reasons.
That’s where paper trail, or anything mildly objective is precious to adjust what needs to be done.
Why would anyone suggest such a thing?
Absent new information shouldn't the default action be to humanely leave person X alone so they can keep doing work and paying their bills without costing the company more?
I must be very naive in the ways of management...
EDIT: This is a real question; what's with the down votes? Should I expect to be treated like this at work?
Agreed. This is my experience at my current job, the first place I've ever worked for which runs reviews like you describe. Yes, we have boring and poorly done tools to "automate" reviews or whatever, pushed by clueless HR people, but the actual review is done constantly by your team leader. You -- and your direct boss -- mostly know what's going on and how your review is going to go, no bullshit or last minute surprises.
Unfortunately, my current workplace is the exception. Most other places I've worked for either had no formal reviews at all -- which may initially sound ok, except you get the nasty last minute surprises anyway -- or it was endless red tape.
the only part of perf atbmy last job I thought was useful was ranking my peers. I'm not saying my ranking was correct but I'm just guessing those ranked high or low more often probably deserve a look?
But a perf review is just a manager's recommendation.
I can think of many reasons why upper management may want to analyze aggregate trends of performance reviews throughout the company, broken down by team, department, manager etc. They can use those trends as data-driven feedback on policy and personnel changes. That is, they can answer questions like “how has our re-org affected overall performance YTD?” Or, “has changing our interviewing methods resulted in higher quality performance reviews of newer employee cohorts?”
In the context of judging us against our peers, it is isn't for us (so of course it's a waste of time for us), or our direct managers, but for upper management. The value there depends on the quality and candidness of feedback. Can this information be totally gleaned from task or ticket tracking systems? I don't think that tells the whole picture.
OK, so is it necessary for upper management to have this data? In a perfect world, this feedback data finds employees with great potential, ASAP and tracks their growth over time, from manager to manager and team to team, but since I'm a lowly professional and not upper management, I have no insight into how this is actually used.
The only way to judge someone is to work with them closely for months/years. Translating that into data points to hand off to a series of managers will never ever work. Especially if it is for higher managers who actually don't know you, and have never worked for you. How can they be the judge of your abilities?
The only way to judge someone is to work with them closely for months/years.
I disagree here. At some point, you're going to have to delegate and give up in micromanaging this process. There's no way Satya Nadella has worked with each Microsoft VP for years or fills openings just with his intuition.
If mostly every manager Python Pat worked for said they were head and shoulders above their peers and has an executive position in their future, then are you going to just ignore their feedback? Career advancement certainly shouldn't be a matter of being lucky enough to have enough face time with the people who make hiring decisions... I guess at the core of this process is trust, trust that the folks filing the review paperwork are doing so correctly, but if you can't trust your managers, you're problems are larger than a review process.
In a lot of instances annual review (or any long cycle review) serve a very important bureaucratic purpose for employees: getting raises (and/or promotions). Nearly everything else in a performance review should be handled in some other way, but it's hard to push management into the position to reward an employee financially outside of such a formal setting. This comes with the disclaimer that if your company sees value in performance reviews (and therefore chooses to have them) than it probably also is the type of company where getting a raise outside of a formal setting is hard.
[1] https://hbr.org/2015/04/reinventing-performance-management
If you want constructive feedback to build your career you need to find a personal mentor, build a relationship, and regularly check in to both provide updates and solicit feedback.
That's true, and it's horrible. That's why the whole thing is a joke. You can be a GREAT employee, but managers can just ding you on this or that simply because they want to or don't like you, and then you get fired as a result. It's ridiculous to wrap that up in the lie that it is a meritocracy.
For example from a previous company some 'goals' included:
1. Take part in at least one company promotional activity e.g. manning a recruiting kiosk
2. Complete at least five computer-based learning modules.
Given the demands of project work these led to people staying behind after work to complete 'goals', or others just sacrificing performance 'points' because they didn't have time to compete. And them each year the thresholds would be ratcheted up.
Perhaps we need to just accept that the compensation systems will never be fair, and managers will just promote and pay the people they like and fire or keep stagnant the employees they don't like.
I liked the idea of the self review, and doing that once or twice a year, as a good stepping off point for a discussion on career pathing, but in general, no one should ever be surprised by anything that would come up in that discussion, otherwise you haven't been a good manager.
It's up to the manager to make sure the feedback discussion happens often, and not wait for the employee to ask or wait for a formal review period.
My boss generally has a pretty good idea how my work is going, the position I'm in means no word is good word anyways. A lot of times its hard to figure out how to answer a question in a way that doesn't read pointless or express my utter disdain for performance reviews.
Having said that, there are situations where performance reviews are a more pragmatic option. As a consultant, I interact daily with my client management, but I can go weeks without any meaningful interaction with my consulting company management. We do check in regularly, and as-needed outside the regular sessions, but my consulting management doesn't take part in my day-to-day work. In order to adequately assess my performance, they need to solicit feedback from client peers and client management. This is a burdensome process that is more practical to perform on a three or six month cycle.
None of this precludes feedback and assessment more frequently, however without the day-to-day observation, some schedule and formality help. I suspect there are many other situations in which people do not work directly with their management.
Besides purposes related to either helping employees grow or covering the company's backside if they need to fire someone, reviews serve another important purpose: they're a way to factor out biases in the award of raises, promotions, and equity. If you don't have performance reviews, these things are guaranteed to be a matter of the managers' subjectivity and bias. If you do have performance reviews, they can be compared to one another both within and across teams to ensure that the results don't favor anyone on the basis of anything except measured merit. That's absolutely essential in any workplace that we could consider modern.
We tend to remember most recent things and assign them greater value. This means that if a below-average colleague did something phenomenal a month before the review, they will receive a more favorable review. Along the same vein, if a well-performing colleague slips up right before review time, this will unfairly penalize her. Annual performance reviews are bad because they are done 50 weeks too late.
We've been trying to address this at the current company I am working with. At 15Five we are building tools for continuous employee feedback and performance assessment.
There should be multiple communication processes going on all at once, with different cadence, that all add up to one's perception of an employee's performance.
We have weekly check ins, which are meant to be answered in less than 15 minutes and reviewed in less than five (hence the name!). People set goals one week and rate them the next. This has a biweekly cadence. Longer terms objectives and key results can be tracked as well, usually on a monthly or quarterly. All this feeds into a performance review, which ideally should happen quarterly, but can be done less often. The difference is that you don't spend a week before the performance review is due trying to remember how each of your team members did. You have that right in front of you, as you've spent the last X months interacting with them, having conversations, and earmarking notable feedback and conversations.
Our customers are happy with this process as an alternative to annual performance reviews.
During my time at Yahoo the process was an absolute joke as leadership was changing on the daily. When I was a PM at Intuit, I received feedback which I still leverage years after the fact.
People shouldn't feel like performance reviews are the only way to receive feedback. Feedback needs to happen regularly, not on an annual basis. Feedback should also come from people you respect, not the people your boss tells you to listen to at work.
Coincidentally, this is an area I have a lot of passion for given I was a HORRIBLE boss at my last company (acquired by Atlassian): https://medium.com/matter-app/you-matter-d7a0b07d078b
I'm also working to fix this problem, if anyone's interested in chatting on the topic or interested in fixing the problem... brett@matterapp.com
I think they can be brilliant, and they can be awful. It depends on the approach of the manager and their subordinate.
Here's what i take away from a company saying i need to do a self evaluation.
1) The company is not going to take my evaluation of myself for any adjustment in position or salary.
2) Therefore it is their attempt to make me be a better employee without any regard to any responsibilities on their side. Sure i'm all for trying to be a better employee, but this is disingenuous.
3) If my boss could accurately evaluate me, i wouldn't need to evaluate myself.
4) The fact that the company requires me to self evaluate, tells me that they suspect that my boss may not be able to do so. Why, i assume it's either because they believe that either my boss doesn't really know what i do, or won't evaluate me fairly for personal or other non business important reasons.
5) If the company is concerned about their management in this regard, and yet continue to have them in those positions without much followup, they don't think very highly of my retention.
Luckily, i have come to realize that even though this is exactly how I feel when asked to be involved in this process, it's likely not the real reason.
One has to remember that HR personnel also want to improve and grow their careers, which entails being able to articulate value propositions to the company as well. How do they do this. Keeping the status quo doesn't get you promoted. Introducing new evaluation processes, including self evaluations, 360 degree evaluations, and other new cutting edge HR policies will.
So likely this onerous new process you are involved in that makes you feel slimy, is just because the HR group needs to justify their positions... which of course should say what you need to know about how you are valued.
Yes, yes, YES!
When I solicit feedback for people on my team, I always remind everyone that anonymous feedback is the worst. Honest, direct feedback is incredibly valuable.
Feedback should be the catalyst for a conversation; not a one time statement to be interpreted or ignored.
For peer feedback, I strongly recommend a trick I stole from my last boss: manager interviews of the employee's peers. You ask the employee for some people who they've worked closely with, mix add in others you think would give good perspective, and then do a short (30-60 mins), structured interview with open-ended questions and follow-up on patterns.
With that material in hand, a manager can write up a peer feedback digest that I think is way more useful than what normally comes out of the process.
Some people like getting told what they're doing right and wrong.
I base my own "performance review" on my skillset and what the market is paying. If the market is willing to pay me more than the company I'm working for - it's time to jump ship.
But I don't ignore performance reviews. I take them as constructive criticism. Even if they are "unfair", I assess what I could have done differently either technically or politically not to be in that position.
Specifically around the mechanism of the performance review, this piece is pretty practical for framing thinking about an alternative approach: https://medium.com/the-carrot-or-the-stick/the-performance-r...
Managers, acting politically, will blame failures on subordinates or push out top performers who could prove a threat to their own job security.
Formalized performance reviews feed many problems by increasing the amount of politics: - Managers looking to increase headcount might avoid giving feedback to average or below performers. - Stack ranking makes it difficult to recognize multiple good performers and forces you to recognize average performers
In that role, they can work very well. (My role being one of observation, not use of / manipulation.) Of course, they aren't really even trying to objectively measure and improve performance.
I mean, they work well for furthering the politics and furthering the ambitions of those in control of the review process.
I didn't find this very productive, in terms of the organizational performance nor, long-term, well-being. Existing powers become entrenched, and turf becomes more important than progress.
Eventually, "outsiders" are brought in, one way or another, to break this up. And most of them know very well and make a career of putting themselves first.
The review process tends to be or become separated from day-to-day work and communication. It exists "out-of-band", and it can end up -- including deliberately -- uninformed by and mis-informed about that actual day-to-day and project results.
I.e. It's very easy to manipulate. And there are always people more than willing to take advantage of this.
Every company is different, but for some traditional companies Reflektive works with them to initially roll out Performance Reviews because companies have dedicated budget for it. Then, once they're comfortable with our tools, our Customer Success team partners with them to craft a roll-out plan for our "Check Ins" product, which is a lightweight feedback tool intended on used every 3 months. For Check Ins, it's meant to be purely about development; at Reflektive, our Check Ins contain no performance rating scores nor do we use it for compensation (we have a separate process for that).
The good news is that a LOT of companies, ranging from small startups to large 50k-employee enterprise companies, actually want to shift towards a more employee-driven model. Our team's number one priority right now is to empower employees/managers to own their own feedback process and to increase the frequency of feedback between managers and their teams. I'm super excited about what's coming down the pipeline!
[1]https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1df5MALZKZU6lOeIXUiO-...
I guess the odds were in my favor.
A simple rule for employees: If your raise/bonus is bad, then they want you to quit. If it's good, then they want you to stay.
In my experience, I've found that they've lead to an, "oh, I better get out of this place ASAP," or, "oh, there's a problem with my manager that I better raise ASAP with his boss."
They spend SO MUCH time on it, for a thing that is mostly irrelevant to how things seem to operate. It’s not like drastic changes are being made to peoples’ salaries or hours off it. Or job titles.
Such things can be discussed and documented at any time.
Why would you let that go one 26 weeks (average) before taking action?
That is more purpose than most of your work has, if you really look at it from a bird perspective.
> A performance review is supposed to be a tool for learning and career development.
This is the misunderstnading. If a politician says he's going to lower taxes, we laugh about it. But when a CEO says he wants to do performance reviews because he cares about how good his worker bees are we believe it? He mostly cares about his bonus and having people clap at his brilliant presentations.
Here's why you are not being promoted this year...
Here's what you need to do to be promoted next year...
Here's why you only got X increase in salary...
Here's what you can do to get a bigger increase next year...
If you are satisfied at your current level, here's what you should keep doing to stay in it...
If they say here's what you need to do, and I do it, and don't get promoted next year. I can say, based on last year's and this year's review, I expected to be promoted. If they try to con their way, that's again my queue to leave.
So in a way, yes, it might be lies, but it forces them out in a very transparent and no nonsense way. Which I'd prefer.
Keep a file on each one of your direct reports. In it, keep notes about their accomplishments, failures, etc. Also, note how they reacted to those. Note any feedback from peers.
Give constant feedback throughout the year.
Be fair in your assessment.
Formulate a succession plan. This includes things like who will take your place when you get promoted as well as who will take the place of your team lead when they move away.
Finally, and this is the most important takeaway, there should never be any surprises in a performance review. EVER. The person being reviewed should go in knowing what they'll receive based on the constant feedback.
This is all management 101 stuff.
It doesn't seem like a good system if the person being reviewed can just select friends for reviews. Conversely, if you only sample a select group, you can surface grudges. An employee with a grudge can be "honest" in their feedback and completely turn a review.
It's just subjective all the way down. You could have managers "interpret" the results and compile them, but that leaves their own biases.
Corporate structure usually has a ceiling for raises in the department, so there needs to be a paper trail on how that gets divided.
If a manager or the company isn't aware of this then they're not paying attention; you shouldn't have to do their job for them.
"What have I done for myself?"
What? Who cares? That's my business.
"What do I want to be when I grow up? (And what do I need to get there?)"
I'm already grown up, do you think you hired children? If of course you meant what do I want to be by next review, well the easy answer is more adept and better paid, hopefully with your help.
People need to hear when they are fucking up because if they don't hear it, they will never improve. That must be followed with a positive company culture that recognizes that rising tides life all ships. You can't have transparency in a company that is toxic, and encourages blaming and backstabbing. Instead, when someone fucks up, we should recognize their humanity and offer a helping hand. If they consistently fuck up, and are unwilling to receive help, then let them go. But don't make people live in constant fear of being fired for the slightest thing. We should feel empowered to push out of our comfort zone and try risky things.
It's the conversation together about what the next chapter could be and should be that can be really valuable.
If there is a performance problem with somebody who happens to be a minority, documented performance reviews that are handled the same for all employees are necessary to show that the employee was not promoted or dismissed or disciplined due to bias.
Q: What is the goal? What are the problems or opportunities it is addressing? A: Be as "fair" as possible in determining raises and promotions, attempting to control for different roles / projects / levels / external factors.
Q: What is the cost? A: 2-4 weeks of company time each year.
Q: Is the process achieving that goal, for an acceptable cost? A: Yes... how else would you accomplish this goal?
On the flip side, I find very few of my reports want to hear negative feedback. It takes a while to build the trust to enable it.
In industry where employees are expensive and they switch jobs roughly every two years anyways it makes total sense. You get to keep employee for another six months for same salary on he may think that it's what he deserves.
Key employees who ask for more, get more. Non-key emploees get "wait for it" because nobody cares if they leave. And some key employees don't ask.
I agree that exploiting your employees it's short sighted but for most businesses short sighted works good enough.
A "Shadow Belief" is an assumption we make without even knowing it's an assumption.
Thinking you can only hear peer feedback from your boss or during an annual formal review is a shadow belief.
You don't need your boss or some stupid process! Ask the people who work with who you respect and do it often.
The major issues with performance reviews almost always come down to poor execution. The whole "Performance Reviews Suck" mirrors the whole "Agile Sucks" in that in principal it can be good, but in practice, it rarely is. Most of it falls on how a manager handles a review, but part of it falls on how an employee receives feedback, as well.
So on to my counterpoints: At the one place and under the one manager, Lou, in my job history where performance reviews worked really well I managed to receive among the worst performance review I have ever received. The score, as it stood, was fine -- I was a top performer at the company and it was hard to argue with the results -- I scored "exceeds" in every category. The criticism, however, was rough -- it was honest, direct and after reading it, I couldn't disagree with any of it very well. I had a great manager who both understood where I excelled and recognized areas where I could grow. He started out the review with "Before you freak out . . . " and went on to explain that the scores and the comments are not going to feel like they're not in full agreement[0]. He explained that the yearly review[1] is about growth, and growth requires feedback, that he didn't need to tell me how well I was doing because we both knew how well I was doing and that his goal is to specifically find areas where I can improve and put a plan together on how he was going to help me get there[2]. A bit of my feedback involved written communication to business managers, "identifying what's important" and throwing the rest out. My comment history will shine the light on the fact that I'm long-winded -- I type fast like the rest of you and I read very fast, so neither receiving or sending a long message is a burden. He did several screen sharing sessions with me to hone my communications, he gave me several books (some from his personal collection) to help me to round out my engineering skills, encouraged me to look at languages and technologies that had different programming paradigms than I was used to. It resulted in me studying a lot of areas that had little to do with my job as a primarily Microsoft-centric developer, but all of it resulted in me becoming a much better developer.
In the right hands, a performance review can be very powerful. It provided a formal time slot to sit down and talk specifically about ways to improve at what I loved doing. A lot of folks would think, "Well, your manager should be doing that, anyway" -- sure -- and in a couple of decades of having a career in engineering, the only time this has happened was under a formal review with all of two of the 15 or so people that I have worked for. For whatever reason, people are unwilling to offer criticism like this outside of that setting, and most of them are unwilling to offer it within that setting for a high-performing employee. And why should they? The high-performers aren't the ones they have to spend time on! And honestly, I would have been more comfortable had he not shared these negative aspects of my performance with me -- they weren't a "big deal", they weren't affecting the great ratings -- leave well enough alone! But the fact that he did bring these things to my attention made me better at what I love doing. I didn't get higher ratings at the next review (though I received feedback about how well I handled the feedback from the last review), and I received far fewer negatives in the process.
Since having that manager, I have told every other manager I report to that "I'm comfortable with receiving criticism" and that I value that kind of feedback, a lot. It hasn't made a terribly large amount of difference in the kind of reviews I've received, unfortunately, but my hope is that by putting that out there, I disarm a manager who is afraid of losing a top-performer as a result of negative feedback.
I've never had to give a review (as a manager; I've done a ton of peer reviews), but the advice I'd offer is: (1) Everyone has something they want to do better and can do better -- call it out. Maybe they don't even realize it's a problem. I didn't! (2) Don't just point it out, commit to working with the employee on the area they received feedback on. (3) Disarm the employee, particularly if their score is high as they'll not expect to see negative feedback. Start with compliments and move into areas of improvement; be as self-deprecating as possible[3]. (4) Actually do the things you set out to do to help your employee. (5) Limit the happy stuff, don't sugar coat the bad stuff[4].
That last point might seem off, and it is -- this only works if you had a boss like the one I had -- he was a great communicator and regularly provided feedback on the positive side. So when he started off the review with "You know how valued you are and how well you do your job", it wasn't placating or dismissive -- I legitimately knew by the flexibility I was given and the constant feedback I received. He was a master at criticising the act rather than the individual, as well, which is something I'd love to be better at.
[0] The comments started off explaining all of the areas that I excel in, but were terse and similarly direct.
[1] This manager also did quarterly less-but-still-somewhat-formal reviews, as well, which I valued.
[2] This was a key point, to me. It was a recognition that part of his job was to make me better and that he wasn't sending me off with negative feedback and expecting me to figure it out -- he was generating work for himself, as well. Honestly, I felt pretty miserable about this particular review for about a month, but during that month, he followed up almost every day on one of the points we discussed and spent several hours providing advice and directly working with me to improve on the areas that he felt I needed help with. I realized that it would have been a lot easier for him to say "atta-boy" and be done with it.
[3] My boss explained that he had the same problem "focusing messages" -- he'd spent an hour with his manager at a prior job agonizing over words in sentences trying to reduce content to a bit over a few tweets without diluting the message. I don't know if that was entirely true (except that this boss was also, easily, the most ethical person I've ever reported to).
[4] As in, don't minimize the negatives, brush them off, or try to find ways that the negative is a positive -- it's placating and dishonest about the intent.
I will readily agree that most common systems unnecessarily bundle multiple high stake issues. For example, most people (me included from time to time) stop listening past "you get a raise of x%" in an annual review.
However, 1 wrong thing (i.e. unnecessary bundling") doesn't invalidate whole whole process.
For example, most performance processes involve goal-setting (I don't know about you, but I find that very very appealing), performance evaluation against goals, soft skill review (i.e. how much do you stress out your teammates?), and plan of action for the next year. Have I received career changing advices through performance review? You bet I have. For example, I pick software engineering because of distribution of my grades (performance review at K12 level!). For another example, don't make stupid & potentially misunderstood jokes.
Sure, continuous & informal feedbacks are important. However, so are formal processes, including feedback and evaluation. Have I improved? How the hell would I know if I don't have things noted down? Should I be promoted? How the hell would another person know if there is no papertrail of evidence of excellence? What am I good at? What role should I play in this team? How should I grow? All of these questions require careful contemplation over behaviors and performance in a long period (a year or at least a few months). Maybe all of you Bill Gates are so smart that you don't need them. But I am mere mortal, and I love feedback.
So, for the love of craftmanship, dedicate time and resources to performance review. It will only matter WHEN YOU MAKE IT MATTER. That's the thing. You can drive the best car the in the world badly if you hate driving. Similarly, if you think that you are so smart that no system can properly evaluate you, well, the system will fail. To be more precise, you fail the system.
When reviews are once or at most twice a year they don't provide guidance a manager should be providing full time. All they are a means for a company to protect themselves from recrimination.
That's not the case in all companies, but for many rings true.
I've read through most of the comments posted thus far, and I'm far from surprised with the varying sentiment. We run into this at Eager Labs, where we facilitate 360s, performance assessments, and more, for companies. Because we actually embed ourselves within the organizations, I get an opportunity to see how different company cultures trigger different reactions to the process of delivering feedback.
A few things we've observed from our work so far that might be interesting to those following this thread:
[1] For many employees, sitting down with their manager and having a conversation around performance is the thing they value the most. This often occurs because the manager doesn't regularly do this as a part of a 1:1 cadence. Having a formalized time where the company "mandates" this conversation can be a useful forcing function when some managers are less willing / apt to have these conversations on their own.
[2] Getting peers to provide actionable feedback is a real challenge. We've invested a lot of time in crafting our process (both in software, and in a workshop we run) to guide people towards providing less feedback along the lines of "Great job, keep it up", and towards S.B.I.A feedback, (Situation - Behavior - Impact - Action). Even if you have something positive to say to someone, give a concrete example of a situation where they exhibited a positive behavior, how that impacted you, and any actions you want them to take going forward. For example, "When you speak up in meetings and share your opinions, it helps me to feel more empowered to share my own thoughts. I'd love to see you speak up more frequently, if not for your own benefit, than for mine!"
[3] Giving regular feedback is great, but make sure you avoid giving 'drive by feedback'. Knowing the right moment to deliver praise or critiques is a skill, and a lot of peers / managers don't know when the right moment is to deliver feedback. For example, as an engineer, one of the most challenging times to personally receive critical feedback is right after a really hard push to deliver some massive new feature or product. The feedback may be totally valid, but knowing WHEN to provide that feedback can be the difference between it being motivating and just discouraging. So, while I totally agree that "feedback should be a regular part of any peer, manager, or mentee relationship", finding the appropriate times to deliver said feedback matters just as much as the feedback itself.
[4] There is no one size fits all solution for performance reviews or feedback. Whether it's what questions to ask, how to deliver the feedback, or what the cadence should be of delivering that feedback... Every team, department, and organization has unique wrinkles that make them special. We end up spending a lot of time customizing our assessments down at the team level for this very reason, because we find that what makes a sales organization tick is wildly different than an engineering department, and while there may be cultural overlap because of company values, they each have their own needs. This is why it can often be challenging for an HR / People Ops department to craft a process that works for the entire company, which may result in a lot of people having a sour experience.
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to share their thoughts so far on this thread. It's been a real pleasure to read.
I sympathize, as I recall going four rounds trying to deliver useful peer feedback to a very patient manager.
I think the block for me was that SBIA is oriented towards an immediate business case, but my thinking was oriented towards improving their performance.
Neither perspective is wrong, though obviously the business case was needed to promote. It highlights a problem with the doctrine behind feedback / performance reviews that views them as discrete units rather than a holistic approach.
I think we really want one continuum of recruiting / professional development / promotion / transition. The day you're interviewed, the company should be asking, "what direction do you want to go in?" and those answers should be the first entry in your file.
What? A performance review is never something I've dreaded. They're just a regular, mundane, thing that happens. They tell you 'good job' give you your raise, which is sometimes just cost of living, sometimes it's $3 to $5k, and then you go back to your desk and go back to work.
It just feels like it's a standard in place to make sure people get income bumps every years. I don't think it's as big a deal as the author is claiming.
I have had 'performance reviews' where the manager would just make up outrageous claims that were simply not true. So they can be a dreadful experience.
Seriously, what performance reviews in 2018 don't involve a self appraisal? Pretty much everything he recommends has been part of the performance review process at my company for the last 8 years. And I'm not saying our process couldn't be improved, but this article offers no real insights of any kind.
Real World: X depends on your livelihood.
18 months I’m a team leader myself and they sent me on the course for doing reviews. And there they taught me the first thing you should always say is “if I took a poll...”
The whole system is toxic
Maybe that wouldn't work everywhere, but it's tripled my starting salary.
