The company I work for could’ve xeroxed my performance review from 10 years ago for annual re-use. It would’ve saved a lot of time for both management and me–how many different ways are there to say “meets standards”?
I like them, both as an employee and as a manager.
As an employee, I like having documentation of what they think I’m good at. I also like having documentation of what they want me to do differently for the next year, if anything. I make sure I show up at the next year’s evaluation with demonstrable evidence that I have succeeded.
For the brief time that I was on the manager’s end of the evaluations, I started off each chat with “overall, I’m happy with your work, or you wouldn’t still be here. So I’m only going to give you negatives: things I want you to change or improve in the coming year.” Nobody liked hearing that, but it did nudge them toward the behavior I needed to see. And it gave me documentation to help me eventually get rid of the few underperformers.
I’m doing performance reviews now and under no illusion that these will help. I just hope they don’t hurt things overall.
And I’ve looked at the literature and it seems that the particular version of the process we are using is prone to causing more problems than it solves. 
I don’t like doing them and I don’t like getting them and I really hate the self-evaluation thing. BUT, people do need feedback.
One problem at my workplace is that your evals are supposed to get better. So what if you started with a really great one? How can it get better? Obviously you’re supposed to get more efficient as you gain experience but if the eval closely follows the introduction of new software, guess what happens?
Since I’m retiring about two months after raises come out, if there are any, this year I didn’t even submit the self-evaluation. All the people in the evaluation room know me. So far no one has asked me for one. I’m betting it makes no difference at all.
That was one of the most content-free articles I’ve read in a long time. “Companies are reconsidering their current performance evaluation systems in favour of slightly different performance evaluation systems.” Yawn.
I’ve worked in the same industry for 15 years, and I don’t think I’ve ever had the same performance evaluation system for more than 2 years running. I figured it was just a way for certain HR workers to justify their jobs, just like slightly redesigning the company’s intranet site every year is a way for certain IT workers to justify their jobs.
I was in a course taught by a bunch of Harvard Business School professors, one an expert on performance evaluation. He told me that companies pretty much switched methods every 3 - 5 years since none were satisfactory.
As an office manager, I had to do performance evaluations on all of my staff through the years. Not my favorite thing to do, that’s for sure. Some people don’t take criticisms well. Or sometimes I’d give a high score to someone, but not be allowed to give them a raise to go with it, which never felt good.
On the other hand, I didn’t hate getting my review. I almost always scored high and almost always got a raise, though sometimes a lot less than I had hoped for. Seeing a “need for improvement” in writing on my record did serve to focus me on that area on the rare occasion that there was one.
That’s an entirely shitty way to do reviews.
You can’t just dismiss all the good stuff someone’s done, and hand-wave away all the hard work they put in with the statement “Overall, I’m happy with your work, or you wouldn’t still be here.” Way to make them feel valued. There was probably a good reason that you were on the manager’s end for a brief time.
Nor can or should you concentrate on only negative stuff; people are going to come to loathe and dread reviews, especially the better employees, because you basically discount any hard work, extra effort or good performance, and then (likely) embark on a journey of nit-pickery, from their perspective.
They’re not “employee criticisms”, they’re reviews- going over the bad AND the good, and deciding where they all aggregate to for an individual employee. It’s every bit as important to highlight the good that they do as it is to try and correct the bad.
I actually enjoy my annual performance appraisal. It’s a nice opportunity stop and reflect on everything that I’ve achieved over the past 12 months and it’s also nice to get a pat on the back from my manager for doing those things. We usually then discuss what we might do differently in the next 12 months, which is also quite motivating as it gives me something to look forward to.
Our bonuses are somewhat determined by our performance appraisal outcomes. So in many ways, my appraisal is an opportunity to ‘sell myself’ to my manager to ensure a good bonus - reminding him of stuff I’ve done during the year that either he wasn’t aware or or may have forgotten about.
**Tim R. Mortiss **, if you want to give people feedback on what you’d like them to change or improve, the time to do that is not the end of year review. There should be no ‘surprises’ in a review. Feedback like that should be timely and relevant to when the employee is doing whatever it is you’re criticising.
People have mentioned it before, but the “your review was completed by management before you ever saw it” thing really pissed me off at my last job.
That job, your raise was based on your performance review (well, and the percentage allocated for raises). So it was important to have a good review if you wanted a good raise. The review system went from 1 (best) to 5 (worst), and there was an overall and a bunch of categories that supposedly went into the overall.
So, wanting a good review so I could have a good raise, I went into the review with reasoning why I deserved a 1 or 2 on each subcategory. My manager didn’t really give a shit, argued on one or two but changed them all anyway. Then it came time for the overall rating, and despite having a 1/2 on all the subcategories, I got a 3 overall. Because that had already been decided and that was the one value he couldn’t change, mainly because that was the only value that mattered.
Later I found out that the stack-ranking occurred organization-wide, so it meant the manager wasn’t just ranking their own people, they had to justify their ranking to the other managers and fight over the good rankings too. And since my manager was a total douchebag, the other managers hated him and always voted down his rankings, so nobody on his team got ones and I think only one of the 25 or so people he managed got a 2.
So not only was my review irrelevant, my performance was too, since it was based off everyone hating my manager, not my actions.
At my first performance review ever, in my first job out of college, my boss (a good guy and a great manager) says to me “Well, the scores are probably lower than you or I think they really ought to be. Larry (company president) and Jay (Exec VP) are of the attitude that we shouldn’t review anyone particularly high, or else you won’t have anything to strive for.”
So I got what would probably work out to a B, if performance evaluations were similar to grades, even though I had exceeded every expectation and improved a number of things that were glaring problems when I’d shown up.
Then to make it more confusing, a few months later, when the profit sharing bonuses came out, I ended up with a bonus equal to 1/2 of my salary, and it was in no small part, based on performance.
So ultimately, they said one thing in the formal reviews, and did another with the bonus, which is definitely better than what other companies have done in subsequent jobs, and given me great reviews and piss-ant raises.
I manage quite a few people and have for many years. I’ve heard most of the complaints about how evals are conducted and think there are some fundamental misunderstandings that cause discord between management and staff. A little bit of explaining goes a long way and I try to involve my group as much as possible, and also telling them that there are things I cannot share due to either ignorance or privledge. Here are how I address a few of the common complaints:
Reviews finalized before they are given to the individual
People hate this. They hate feeling like they don’t have input, or their contributions aren’t recognized. There is no way a manager can know all the things their team is doing and without input there are things that will be missed. I alleviate this by offering an opportunity for any person to do their self eval first. That way, they can emphasize any point they wish. Then, I draft their eval, and give them this draft in advance of our face to face meeting. This allows them time to process and respond with any comment they wish not under pressure of a time constrained meeting. I give no less than 1 full day, but try to give 2 days. More than that I’ve found is not productive. I’ve made many many changes to my intitial drafts over the years based on comments from the individual.
Reviews not completed timely
This one is particularly annoying. The review should be done contemporaneously with the end of the evaluation period. Some companies internal deadlines are past this point quite signficantly. In those situations I conduct the reveiw early and tell them this is the final review, even though we need to submit it to HR some months down the line. As a manager, I have few deliverables - conducting reviews timely is one of them.
But by far, the biggest issue people have, and has been raised here in different ways, is that the review is not connected to pay, or that people are forced into traunches of above, meets, or below expectations even though all among the group are high performers.
Here’s the thing though, the pool of dollars is genearlly fixed. That means, that yes, every single person in a group can exceed expectations, but if that’s true, then each would divide the pool evenly. How I explain this to folks is that the measure of performance is objective - expectations and goals are set and we can determine how each did with respect to those items. The way we determine compensation is not objective - it is dependent not on how well a person accomplished their goals, but how they stack in relation to their peer group. All could exceed expectations, but not everyone can be the same. So people get calibrated against their peers and that determines pay.
After we do the evals on individual performance, I gather all the managers together and we compare notes on how each performed against each other. This way we can determine who the highest and lowest performers are, and adjust compensation from the pool accordingly.
In every place I’ve been, after I explain the process to people it goes over much better. YMMV.
The first company I worked for out of college had an elaborate evaluation process and a forced ranking where they would fire the bottom 10% of those who had been there for five years or less. It was horrible.
To be fair, I wasn’t doing well. My manager had told me that I had some things to do better but I had no idea I was doing bottom 10% poorly. The system didn’t really allow for mid year formal evaluations as everything took forever to do so, when I finally got my evaluation, it was too late to do any better.
But let me back up and tell you about the evaluation itself. We were evaluated on 215 specific behaviors across 9 categories. The rubric was simple enough but everyone used it differently which made the forced ranking complete moot. My manager felt that everyone started middle of the road and had to be above and beyond in his mind to get anything higher. The problem with that is that he completely ignored the rubrics guidelines. It took months to self evaluate and then for your manager to fill out his side. The whole thing was horrible.
So I ended up on a PIP. Except, since it had taken so long to do everything, I was told I’d fail at that too. I ended up finding a new job. It was the worst experience of my life.
Done properly, a performance review is an excellent tool that serves to focus the employee on what’s important to his manager, reward him for achieving such goals, and is delivered by a manager who has actual knowedge of the employee and has monitored his or her progress over the past year.
Sadly, in practice, we’re lucky if even one of those is true. Mostly they are just a yearly exercise that both employee and manager dislike and mistrust. Often, results are predetermined based on upper management’s stated budget for the upcoming year. They tend to be either heavily biased or made up out of thin air by managers who don’t know their employees and have little to no idea what they actually do.
After better than 20 years in HR, I have come to be very cynical about reviews. In my previous job, I had a boss who resided in another country and whom I saw maybe twice a year. He had no idea what I was doing as long as no one complained or I didn’t go over budget doing it. He’d call me to remind me it was review time, ask me to write up a review for myself and he’d sign it. Of course, given those circumstances, I was a combo of Mother Teresa and Marie Curie on paper.
Reviews were always done in October, right after the budget for the following year had been finalized. Each group had an assigned percentage to offer their employees in raises. It was up to the manager to decide who got what. Once they determined that, the reviews were given such that the employee’s review would match the percentage of raise allowed for them in the budget.
Certain groups of employees were prohibted from receiving a review higher than “meets expectations”. That group included administrative employees (secretaries, clerks, admins) and low-level field people. They were never told this, but it was well known that you couldn’t give your assistant a Superior or Excellent rating. It would be reduced by management if you tried. All employees at this level received the same raise, no matter how well or poorly they performed. It was usually about 1.7%. As our CEO at the time famously told us, nothing these people, even the best of them, do makes a measurable difference to the bottom line. Well, ok then.
There were always a few departments - R&D comes to mind - that did thoughtful, competent reviews that provided valuable data to both employee and manager and that set forth clear goals and obstacles to overcome for the following years. These reviews made both the employee and the manager better and contributed toward a well-run and effective department. It was our R&D depatyment that our competitors repeatedly tried to buy from us. Those aren’t typically the employees your competitors go after, but the quality and contribution of that department was evident.
My present company is better with their reviews. They do encourage 360 reviews, particularly for those employees with a remote manager. And they have some flexibility - not a lot - in deciding bonuses based on merit (raises are standard and budgetary based) and prior year’s achievement of KPIs, both individual and within the department.
The organization I currently work for has semi-annual performance reviews that mean nothing. They are in no way tied to pay raises. When raises are applied they are given at the same percentage to everyone across the board. Good, bad, indifferent employees all get the same percentage. It is like the “everyone gets a trophy for showing up for soccer practice” common in public schools. One guess which industry I work in. 
Formerly I worked 30 years at a small manufacturer. First on the line and later in management. The first 10 years we were privately owned, no reviews, performance issues were addressed as needed.
The second 10 years we were part of a major corporate group owned by Mitsui. And we had annual A, B, C, type reviews that were a complete joke. Everyone, I mean everyone got a B.
Why? If your manager gave you an A because you were excelling at your job he also had to develop a plan of action that would take advantage of your talent and help you up the ladder to success. Fuck that! None of the managers wanted to assign themselves an extra project like that that they would be accountable for.
Same thing if you gave out a C. You were not going to be retained unless the manager developed a plan that would bring a marginal employee up to standards. Again, too much work for the manager.
Everyone got a B and it was ridiculous to the point the we just sat around for 15 minutes of our performance review talking about sports or the weather.
The last 10 years we went private again and threw out all the performance review silliness. I got more pay raises and performance bonuses during the private years than the corporate ones.
I’ve never been able to take them seriously. Fortunately, as an independent consultant for the past 25+ years, I’ve neither had to get nor give one.
It certainly near the top of my list of the most pointless work related endeavours.
Performance reviews are absolutely a waste of time. Even if done well, one can minimize the negatives of a performance review, but they’re still bad.
First, a good manager should be checking in with the people he manages regularly, not just annually. If an employee is doing well or doing poorly, he should know that when it’s relevant. If he did a particular task or handled a particular situation exceptionally well or poorly, then it should be addressed at that time. By having annual reviews, it essentially allows all but the best managers to lessen or ignore this important part of management and has them judging the overall performance of an employee based on a period where they may not have the best recollection of what happened. As an example, if an employee is generally fairly average, but had a recent positive or negative situation, it’s likely to weigh heavier than it rightfully should.
Second, it’s usually some kind of formalize rubric, particularly for large organizations, that are generic and difficult to apply to specific jobs. It’s not unlike using a standardized test to judge how educated students are, except using it to judge college students across all majors. Further, it’s virtually impossible to apply these standards equitably across an entire organization, or even within the same general group. If one manager is laid back and another is a hard ass, or if personal feelings get involved, two employees with virtually identical performance might receive vastly different ratings.
Third, different employees need different kinds of feedback on their performance, and these kinds of things might be helpful to some employees, but they’re also either with little value or even harmful to some employees. If an employee stresses out over performance reviews, not only is it bad for him, but it probably negatively affects his performance which, in turn, just makes his review even worse. And even if periodic reviews are beneficial to some employees, certainly it gets even more stressful if compensation is tied to it.
Finally, on that matter, I think tying compensation to it is silly precisely for all these reasons. If someone does a good job, why wait until their review to reward them? Worse, by the time the reviews get up to a high enough level, it’s all just numbers and the nuance is lost in the system, and the bonuses or raises are just coming from some pre-determined pot anyway. In my experience, it generally takes a manager really fighting to get someone a raise, otherwise they just cite a non-exceptional review as a reason to give whatever they decided the raise should be, lucky if it’s even COLA.
And seriously, we have entire bureaucracies of people devoted to an endeavor this worthless? And it’s something that discourages people that would otherwise be good managers or at least serviceable ones from taking up those jobs for people that either are simply willing to do it or even thrive on the power it gives them.
Instead, I think we need to give greater freedom to managers to figure out what works best. So, sure, if you’re a salesman, perhaps a periodic review of some sort makes sense, but it also needs to be put in context and probably shouldn’t be compared directly, even among his colleagues. On the other hand, since my work is more project based, I want feedback on each project, or for larger projects that have longer timelines, give me feedback on particular milestones, as applicable. But still, I generally have a good idea of where I am on the timeline and the quality of my work, so my managers have tended only to give me feedback if they thought I did a particularly good job or I was falling behind.
I think they are a good idea at least in principle.
However, I think that the overly regimented fashion in which they’re often used is silly, especially the whole 360 review.
In my business (me and 4 employees), I use periodic reviews on no particular schedule to let an employee know how things are going. It’s a good way for me to say “You really did well with X” because I often forget to compliment people in the thick of the action, and it’s also a good time to say “I’d like you to improve your skills with Y” because those kinds of minor/nonspecific goals often don’t come up in the day to day conversations.
Waiting until a set time allows budgets to be more manageable - budgets are usually set on some interval, and raises tend to follow that. There is significant amount of administrative work necessary to process wage increases, and having them haphazardly happen throughout the year can have a negative impact on various functions if not planned for.
In addition, a raise based on merit needs a sufficient amount of time to demonstrate the behavior. A single event or action by itself will rarely support a raise - perhaps a spot bonus but a raise indicates either a significant performance improvement, increased expectation, future goals, or some combination of these and more criteria.