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Ask HN: How does performance appraisals happen in your organisation?

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Re: Ask HN: How does performance appraisals happen in your organisation?

#21

Post by hbcondo714 »

Our employee handbook states we are supposed to undergo annual performance reviews but I never received one in the years I've been with this company. I don't believe anyone on my team has received one either but other teams within the company have as there have been promotions.

I know I'm not perfect and have even asked the person I report to for feedback / training / continuing education opportunities and he literally says he doesn't have any for me. I've asked HR too but they have no suggestions.

There is some incompetence, negligence and careless mistakes that occur repeatedly with specific team members but there isn't any kind of corrective measures being made with anyone. I believe performance reviews would help rectify this problem.

When working for previous companies, we had extensive performance reviews, 1 on 1s and step 1 on 1s with our supervisor's supervisor. Everyone always took those opportunities seriously and wrote essay-like evaluations. It was time consuming but now I actually miss those days.

Re: Ask HN: How does performance appraisals happen in your organisation?

#22

Post by throwaway201125 »

suvo wrote: post #8
rand846633 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is or what means “curve”?

HR version: The bell curve of emp performance. (figures collated from workday/slack or some other metrics) So the worst performers are adjusted (read purged) to get to a better standard for the next 'cycle'.

[rant] the tone deafness of the process is in the fact that the company is okay letting perfectly good people go for some self congratulatory metric. The company has a high interview bar, if I may claim so myself. So it's perfectly possible that all 5 people in a team are doing good work. But now you are forced to push someone out because "we only retain the best".

They are okay losing people, okay losing the investment done in them, okay losing the knowledge of systems they acquired for a rule someone in the HR made because they read a study on it. What a bunch of buffoons really.

Re: Ask HN: How does performance appraisals happen in your organisation?

#23

Post by Graffur »

There's a 1 to 5 rating where you're expected to at least get a 3. 4 gets a salary increase and 5 is not given out that often but it's the best. I am pretty sure it's a bell curve but don't know for sure really.

I ignore it and just do my job to the best of my ability. It works pretty well except for managers who try push silly things like increasing exposure or demonstrating leadership.

Re: Ask HN: How does performance appraisals happen in your organisation?

#25

Post by jasfi »

throwaway201125 wrote: post #2

360 degree reviews. Peer reviews, manager reviews all that shenanigans. None of that matters anyway because in the end 5- 10% people will be fired based on curve. How satisfied am I with it? I hate it and it's the sure shot way to ruin mental health of your employees. Tools used: Workday (which deserves a special place in hell itself)

What would you prefer to those reviews?

Re: Ask HN: How does performance appraisals happen in your organisation?

#27

Post by throwaway201125 »

jasfi wrote: post #25
throwaway201125 wrote: post #2

360 degree reviews. Peer reviews, manager reviews all that shenanigans. None of that matters anyway because in the end 5- 10% people will be fired based on curve. How satisfied am I with it? I hate it and it's the sure shot way to ruin mental health of your employees. Tools used: Workday (which deserves a special place in hell itself)

What would you prefer to those reviews?

360 degree reviews without explicit curve fitting.

Re: Ask HN: How does performance appraisals happen in your organisation?

#28

Post by names_are_hard »

wreath wrote: post #19
names_are_hard wrote: post #16

I'm at a FAANG-adjacent big company, we use what seems to be an in house tool. Twice each year I fill out a form in which I describe what I did, what I plan on doing, and how this contributes to my goals as well as to our shared goals of Diversity and Inclusion. Then my manager fills our the same form about me from his perspective. Simultaneously I am encouraged to request feedback from my colleagues and they from me…

> [...] as well as to our shared goals of Diversity and Inclusion. Does this apply to people working in Engineering? are you incentivized to have goals that have impact on D&I?

Yes, it applies to everyone. I don't know about the incentives, I think it really depends on your management chain. Different managers emphasize different priorities, like in any job, you need to read the room and figure out what really matters to your boss (and their boss) and what is "nice to have".
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