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Ask HN: What does performance management look like at your company?

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Re: Ask HN: What does performance management look like at your company?

#81

Post by beardedetim »

combatentropy wrote: post #17

It looks like a total waste of time. As a developer of internal web apps, it is apparent what I must do next to serve my users, in the next week, month, quarter, year --- I have a long to-do list! It is also apparent what I must do to serve my team, in the next week, month, quarter, year. (I get rave reviews from both, unsolicited.) The goals that cascade from the executives are laughably vague and obvious: cut costs…

> In my opinion, such people should be fired, not babysat.

I feel this same way at most places I've worked. But as I've gotten older, I've started to think "how can I level these people up?" and that has gotten me much farther towards my personal goals than the prior thoughts.

Not staying you should or that you aren't already. Just a thought to past me.

Re: Ask HN: What does performance management look like at your company?

#82

Post by forgotthepasswd »

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #6

Slightly off center from your question, but: 1. Every Wednesday I Google Meet with my salespeople. We review the prior week's priority prospects, this week's, and then I ask them about clients not on the list that our BI system has identified as promising. An integration of internal systems, Slack & Zapier alerts me each day to anomalies (good and bad) with clients, inventory and systems. MixMax (shout out to Brad!)…

OT: Hello howmayiannoyyou, can I by any chance interview you for 10 min for feedback on a product I'm building? It looks to me that it fits part of the workflow you mentioned, and it would be useful to hear your perspective. My email is on my profile. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What does performance management look like at your company?

#84

Post by anonymous1111 »

candiddevmike wrote: post #21

In most companies I've worked in: thinly veiled nepotism and cronyism. I've never seen the inputs of a performance management tool being the only inputs for calculating merit or bonus amounts, so the outcomes of both these situations depends heavily on your relationship with your boss and their boss. Don't get me started on stack ranking or making sure everyone "fits the curve" by knocking down everyone to average be…

> thinly veiled nepotism and cronyism

Exactly my experience as well, but it's often not even thinly veiled.

These processes should not even be referred to as "performance" reviews since they often have little or nothing to do with performance. It's loaded and deceptive language.

Re: Ask HN: What does performance management look like at your company?

#86

Post by anonymous1111 »

awinder wrote: post #30

I’ve used pseudo-OKRs at the last few places, where there’s basically a bailout option where you just change the OKRs at the end of the year to match what happened (if you were doing well). Depends on what you mean by works/doesn’t work. In my experience performance management is mostly about recording business justification for continued employment, bonuses, advancement, or the negative versions of these. So by that…

The OKR's can be ignored as long as there is "progress", but progress measurement is still very subjective and statistics can be deceptive, so the process often just ends up being the usual game of nepotism. Not hitting OKR's can also allow managers to request more headcount, meaning they are incentivized to make excuses instead of delivering value.

Re: Ask HN: What does performance management look like at your company?

#87

Post by Merrill »

cbanek wrote: post #50
electricslpnsld wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I had that kind of insight into my ‘performance’ pre-review! I’m at a FAANG right now and given my interactions with my manager alone, I figured I was bombing performance-wise (constant complaints about my work, refuses to acknowledge any accomplishments, super angry at me during one on ones, assigns piles of work that ‘need’ to be done by Monday on Friday at 6pm and then doesn’t even acknowledge the completio…

As just a random internet person, please, let me agree that you need a new manager. Other than yourself, no person has more impact on your job, and if you're taking shit and dong well, you can do so much better. Also, never forget that your performance is 'capped' by your management chain. While others may see that you are amazing, the best they will be able to do is poach you to their team, but they can't override y…

I've heard that its your manager's manager that is important to your career. Your manager can't actually promote you, except by recommending you as their replacement if promoted or transferred. Your manager's manager can either promote you or work a deal with their peers to get you promoted.

If your manager is keeping your performance results from being reflected upwards, you have a problem.

Re: Ask HN: What does performance management look like at your company?

#88

Post by vosper »

I've never worked anywhere that OKRs are actually taken seriously or followed through.

They'll get rolled out with a big hype, people will fill them out with varying degrees of diligence and understanding of how OKRs are supposed to work.

3 months later they're already forgotten and out of date. Some managers will try to keep it going for their teams, because that's what they were told to do, but that'll peter out once they realise no-one else in the org is taking it seriously.

6 - 12 months later there'll be a half-hearted attempt to reset and resurrect the OKR process, but after the first time people take it even less seriously the second time around, and after a few more months OKRs are never mentioned again.

Re: Ask HN: What does performance management look like at your company?

#89

Post by nilkn »

cbanek wrote: post #24

It's all honestly completely useless. I've never had a useful performance review at any company ever. It's either I'm doing bad, and know it, and that is either my fault or due to reasons outside of my control. Or I'm doing well, and know it. Honestly, sometimes at places things were so bad that I felt I was doing terrible, but I was actually keeping the team going by pushing past a lot of tricky issues. Really I thi…

Here's my slightly unusual take on performance management as a manager.

If I'm doing my job well, reviews should mostly feel like a formality. They shouldn't take much time from me or from my reports.

If I'm doing my job poorly, one signal of that is that a review takes a lot of effort. If a performance review takes a lot of my time or that of the report receiving the review, it suggests there's been some considerable communication breakdown. Typically this means the report has been performing poorly, doesn't realize it, and I have failed to convey this situation to them. More rarely, someone is doing well but I failed and made them feel like they were doing poorly.

In this way, I still appreciate the review process. It encourages me to confront performance management issues continuously throughout the year, and in the worst case that I slip up it provides a safeguard that makes sure I eventually do get on the right page with the employee.

Re: Ask HN: What does performance management look like at your company?

#90

Post by AnotherGoodName »

electricslpnsld wrote: post #44
cbanek wrote: post #24

It's all honestly completely useless. I've never had a useful performance review at any company ever. It's either I'm doing bad, and know it, and that is either my fault or due to reasons outside of my control. Or I'm doing well, and know it. Honestly, sometimes at places things were so bad that I felt I was doing terrible, but I was actually keeping the team going by pushing past a lot of tricky issues. Really I thi…

I wish I had that kind of insight into my ‘performance’ pre-review! I’m at a FAANG right now and given my interactions with my manager alone, I figured I was bombing performance-wise (constant complaints about my work, refuses to acknowledge any accomplishments, super angry at me during one on ones, assigns piles of work that ‘need’ to be done by Monday on Friday at 6pm and then doesn’t even acknowledge the completio…

Stop your manager in their tracks next 1:1 and state you have some feedback about how you're feeling here. Start by noting that it's a very stressful time right now and that these concerns are even more important for you. Your manager would likely be hurt if you left and good managers appreciate upwards feedback so that they can correct on their side.

The fact that the performance rating is good means your manager probably is acknowledging the work you do, just not to you. The manager input for ratings is hugely important at the FAANGs, so your manager is clearly telling others you're doing a great job. There's just clearly a gap here between you and her/him in that feedback.

Source: Am a manager at one of the FAANGs. I'm finding that everyone is overthinking every bit of feedback right now. Clearly minor feedback is hard to differentiate compared to major feedback. Likely due to the video communications barrier and that everyone is a little bit more alone with their thoughts. I'm being cautious on delivery because of it. There's also less ad-hoc thank you's and acknowledgements going around due to the remote barriers.

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