On being the employee who “needs improvement” • Hacker News Board

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#81

Post by soneca » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 2:44 PM UTC

ggambetta wrote: post #40

ptero wrote: post #31

Leaving aside the clear miscommunication that led to the "needs improvement" state first, it seems to me the management did just fine after that: 1. They quickly and clearly told the employee of the problem. 2. They proposed a course of action 3. Their proposal worked (at the end they were happy with his work). It was not pleasant for sure (for both sides, I bet), but would it be worse to say nothing and terminate hi…

My thoughts exactly - this is a clear case of the process working as intended.

Yes, it worked as intended. And still the employee felt humiliated, "the damage was done" and the mutual trust was eroded. So this processo doesn't work at all, even in the best scenario. That's why the author is criticizing it I guess.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#82

Post by kd5bjo » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 2:55 PM UTC

e40 wrote: post #73

codyb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find managing upwards is the best way to deal with these situations. I've had micromanagers before and no one enjoys that random "hey wheres X at?" question so what I do is give status updates every so often. I avoid the stressful question entirely this way. It makes your managers life easier and yours as well and allows you to give updates on your time instead of theirs. This works remotely and in person. I work m…

I can't stress how good the above comment is at dealing with this. As a long time manager, people that behave this way are a total joy to manage. Also, if you have a smartphone and your company uses slack, there is no reason to be unreachable, unless you are in a deadzone of cell reception or driving. But, if you practice the above, it shouldn't be an issue. For example, a post to #OOO: hey, running an errand for the…

> if you have a smartphone... there is no reason to be unreachable

It is totally fine to be unreachable nights and weekends[1] without providing notice to your employer; being able to detach from work completely from time to time is key to minimizing burnout risk, and what you do on your own time is none of their business.

[1] With the exception of formalized support rotations, of course

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#83

Post by ryanmarsh » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 2:57 PM UTC

At this point in my career I've realized that if you're told your performance "needs improvement" and someone isn't assigned to mentor you and help you perform better then you should start looking for a new job.

Not apprenticing you is like saying "you suck, fix yourself". No. That's not the culture you want to be a part of.

I've been that guy. There have been times someone helped me and I grew and it was awesome. There have also been times I wasn't helped and there was a ton of unnecessary thrashing. It's just bad leadership. My guess is the work environment is maybe a little toxic in other ways too.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#84

Post by elmerland » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 3:01 PM UTC

I'm confused about this article. On the one side I agree with his point on constant and timely feedback. On the other side I disagree with his dismissal of yearly reviews and weekly meetings.

You need these more formal environments to quantify the performance over a longer period of time. In doing so you can correct for biases, and get feedback not just from the manager but from everyone you work with. Additionally you can aggregate the data company wide to see patterns and hopefully try something new. I'm sure plenty of people do it wrong and that might be a different conversation.

Maybe what the performance improvement was missing was a human touch. Giving feedback without caring for the person can feel cold and calculating.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#85

Post by MichaelRenor » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 3:07 PM UTC

tigershark wrote: post #7

humanrebar wrote: post #5

I don't know what the motivations for the bosses in this story were, but in corporate America personal improvement plans are fundamentally about gearing up to fire someone more than any actual improvement. When defending yourself against a wrongful termination lawsuit, it looks good to courts to say, "Look, we met every week, we had these conversations, and things didn't get better enough." In the story linked, it se…

Honestly to me it seems that the author was extremely unprofessional. He just disappeared for whole days without letting anyone know. In all the companies that I worked it was explicitly mentioned in the contract that such behaviour was subject to disciplinary actions up to dismissal.

It does seem that was the case and then if you can simply say "please never disappear for the whole day without telling me" and that would be the end of it. I think there's more going on here.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#86

Post by balfirevic » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 3:08 PM UTC

kd5bjo wrote: post #82

e40 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't stress how good the above comment is at dealing with this. As a long time manager, people that behave this way are a total joy to manage. Also, if you have a smartphone and your company uses slack, there is no reason to be unreachable, unless you are in a deadzone of cell reception or driving. But, if you practice the above, it shouldn't be an issue. For example, a post to #OOO: hey, running an errand for the…

> if you have a smartphone... there is no reason to be unreachable It is totally fine to be unreachable nights and weekends[1] without providing notice to your employer; being able to detach from work completely from time to time is key to minimizing burnout risk, and what you do on your own time is none of their business. [1] With the exception of formalized support rotations, of course

I certainly hope parent poster meant being reachable during working hours.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#87

Post by matt_wulfeck » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 3:10 PM UTC

csydas wrote: post #18

humanrebar wrote: post #5

I don't know what the motivations for the bosses in this story were, but in corporate America personal improvement plans are fundamentally about gearing up to fire someone more than any actual improvement. When defending yourself against a wrongful termination lawsuit, it looks good to courts to say, "Look, we met every week, we had these conversations, and things didn't get better enough." In the story linked, it se…

I think that is a somewhat cynical view of the matter; I appreciate that "American Work Ethics" are highly flawed and mostly theatrics (I say this as an American expat who has experienced work from all over the globe), but as much as there is management theatrics in the US, there's also a lot of "woe is me" from employees when they're disciplined. I'd really hate to see how the author of the piece would have reacted…

I once had a boss that would get really worked up and angry if you made him mad. He's spew why he was upset at you. But then that was it. You knew when it was over. I miss that refreshing interaction in a weird way.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#88

Post by user5994461 » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 3:14 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #26

foodie_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it was Andy Grove who suggest no more than 6-8 direct reports for this reason.

6-8 sounds like too many. Anyways, in addition to probably being unfit for people management, it sounds like it would take away all my coding time.

A manager doesn't code.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#89

Post by whiddershins » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 3:15 PM UTC

I completely and intuitively understand what this employee is reacting to, and I think the it is hard to articulate why the approach his managers took is not great.

In this situation the managers could have gotten the same exact result without making the employee feel humiliated. Something along the lines of "stuff is falling through the cracks, let's do a meeting to touch base once a week so we can make sure everything is going well."

In those once a week meetings, the managers could provide positive and negative feedback in a balanced way.

However, once you've told an employee they are being "a prima Donna" and basically you need fixing, every meeting is another denigrating experience. That whole PIP idea makes sense for a paper trail justifying termination, but is otherwise terrible for morale.

Edit: in all relationships, professional or personal, try to keep your feedback specific and impersonal. "We need a reply to emails within 24 hours" is much better than "you have a communication problem." "Don't yell at John during meetings." Is way better than "you lose your temper too often."

Etc.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#90

Post by CydeWeys » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 3:16 PM UTC

e40 wrote: post #73

codyb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find managing upwards is the best way to deal with these situations. I've had micromanagers before and no one enjoys that random "hey wheres X at?" question so what I do is give status updates every so often. I avoid the stressful question entirely this way. It makes your managers life easier and yours as well and allows you to give updates on your time instead of theirs. This works remotely and in person. I work m…

I can't stress how good the above comment is at dealing with this. As a long time manager, people that behave this way are a total joy to manage. Also, if you have a smartphone and your company uses slack, there is no reason to be unreachable, unless you are in a deadzone of cell reception or driving. But, if you practice the above, it shouldn't be an issue. For example, a post to #OOO: hey, running an errand for the…

Being unreachable during core business hours is definitely a huge problem from the perspective of the non-remote employee (me) who's in the office for the typical eight hours a day trying to get something done and being blocked by a coworker who's unreachable because they're remote. If you a remote worker, the onus is on you to never let the fact that you're not in the office become a burden on your coworkers. If you end up being harder to work with because you're less reachable then your coworkers will begin to resent you for it, and that doesn't lead down a good path.

If you're not online and available during the expected business hours for your position then you're not really doing 100% of your job, because you're not able to assist your team members as is expected of your role.

Note that this applies to members of standard software engineering teams, and not necessarily to contractual work that involves delivering products on certain timetables but not necessarily close collaboration with a team.