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When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

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Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#361

Post by cmrdporcupine »

jmchuster wrote: post #235
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #36

Google has a culture of internal peer bonuses and kudos, which in some ways is great and meant to help with this kind of thing... except that it also leads to an internal culture of "congrats!" and "thank you for your amazing work!" centi-threads which often overlook other contributors on a project, or are used strategically by overly political managers to boost their own reports and projects and gain corporate visib…

I definitely consider it part of my job as a manager to boost my own reports and their projects. If even your own manager isn't going to publicly congratulate you on your hard work, then who is going to?

Promoting the work of your own reports is legitimate manager behavior. But when that takes the form of ignoring or minimizing other people's teams efforts in a project, it leads to inequity.

In any case teams are ideas... organizational structures, but shipped projects are real things. If the needs/desires of the organizational structure consistently take precedence over the actual needs involved in shipping product, the company is in trouble.

Multiple times in the last few years I've worked on projects that were in direct stated or unstated competition and in parallel development with other projects from different teams, but with the same feature set and target market but different technology stacks and organizational structures. I don't like this, at all.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#362

Post by opportune »

giantg2 wrote: post #126
opportune wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been told this several times when I’ve asked what I could do to get a higher rating or promotion. It always meant that there was some tenure element to the rankings. I think from the manager’s perspective they are being both honest and reassuring, but from the report’s perspective, it’s very frustrating knowing your progress is being limited, and hard work wasted, due to some bureaucratic limitation. And knowing…

At my company it wasn't a tenure thing, although I think that played an informal role as to why I was picked vs someone else. When a manager picks someone for the highest rating some departments require the manager to also pick someone as an FDN to "balance it out". In this case I know the guy that got the high rating. As weird as it is to say, and even when the wound was fresh, I was/am happy for him and he deserved…

Ah, I didn’t realize “FDN” was a bad review

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#363

Post by 5evOX5hTZ9mYa9E »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #193
jedberg wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as bad as it sounds. Yes, it certainly happens and it sucks for the good person that it happens to. But managers like that don't last very long. When you get let go, they ask in the exit interview if you were warned, if your manager gave you any feedback leading up to it, etc. And then they follow up if the person says, "it was a total shock". I've definitely seen managers make some bad firing decisions, but…

When you get let go, they ask in the exit interview if you were warned Why would anyone give any kind of useful information in the exit interview? The only one who benefits is the company, they need to cover their back in case a suit over harassment comes up. If anyone wants revenge over poor management, keep silent, let the fellow continue to lose the company money and set them up for a lawsuit. HR is not on your si…

This. I never understood people who go apeshit during exit interviews or are even honest during it. There is simply zero benefit to genuinely cooperating on an exit interview.

If the company is trash and you lay it all out during the exit interview you're simply burning bridge (particularly if they do in fact act on your feedback and somebody gets smacked about it) and if you're ever in a situation where you get let go suddenly or whatever, the person who you blasted may veto your return.

You owe the company less than nothing. Play your cards close to the chest, say the reason for leaving is personal and not at all related to the company and move on with your life. Why would you want to help the company that just fired you?

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#364

Post by ibeckermayer »

beefield wrote: post #116
opportune wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constructive feedback and most other negative feedback is really aspirational at the company level. It sounds good for HR to try to say it’s a company “value” and to encode it in reviews. In reality it’s never ever worth it to give constructive feedback to peers or upward (downward is OK). It’s bad for social dynamics, cohesion, and morale, especially when it’s formalized as part of some review process. It’s essentia…

Is there a company that consists of people that actually are willing and interested in getting "constructive feedback"? Basically I think that it would mean that the people are so intereted in the quality of the work they are doing that anything that might make their work better is interesting even if it turns out they have done something "wrong" earlier. If there is , I might considering applying at some point. I as…

Look at how Ray Dalio runs Bridewater

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#366

Post by tylergetsay »

I worked at a retail store when I was a tiny 16 year old, I got a ton of NPS surveys by telling people I got a pizza party if I got enough of them. It worked crazy well, I quickly became top in the company for NPS. It was hilarious watching my older coworkers attempt to pull it off and fail.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#367

Post by chansiky »

jedberg wrote: post #107
ping_pong wrote: post #17

This is the biggest problem with stack ranking software engineers, the practice I had to endure while at a well known software company. All it does is create a zero-sum game, so I have no incentive to compliment anyone else. I needed to make sure that my rank was as high as I could make it, which really sucked during performance time. It was very stressful, even though I was a high performer, because it didn't foster…

This is what I loved about working at Netflix. We didn't have performance reviews. It was assumed that your performance was good to excellent, otherwise you wouldn't be working there anymore. You had a constant feedback loop with your manager on performance, but nothing was ever formal. Raises were completely divorced from any performance assessment. You were paid whatever they thought the max was for your skillset,…

This sounds like a huge step up in company management from what exists at most places.

I love how it creates the side effect that bad managers get fired if they fire a good employee (as you mentioned elsewhere). Its not even a written rule, but just through social physics it seems to bring out the correct outcome for people who actually add/subtract value.

I bet they also save a lot of money simply by not employing people who do nothing but look good and smooch around while being a negative contributor, since those people typically cost the most. And, a small portion of the money saved goes back into the salary of those who deserve it for the rate they are worth making them glad to stick around and help them succeed.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#368

Post by giantg2 »

opportune wrote: post #362
giantg2 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my company it wasn't a tenure thing, although I think that played an informal role as to why I was picked vs someone else. When a manager picks someone for the highest rating some departments require the manager to also pick someone as an FDN to "balance it out". In this case I know the guy that got the high rating. As weird as it is to say, and even when the wound was fresh, I was/am happy for him and he deserved…

Ah, I didn’t realize “FDN” was a bad review

Yep, it shows up on your record for 3 years when posting for a new position or promotion, maybe longer for management positions.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#369

Post by giantg2 »

brabel wrote: post #343
giantg2 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! I've sort of considered moving into a business role and becoming a business analyst. Seems like a huge pay cut (that I can't afford) and years of wasted effort. I actually have a business administration minor and trade options and equities, so I have a better understanding of finance and the business than most people I work with in IT. I work for a large financial company and my previous team was amazed that…

With a knowledge of finance and software development, you should be able to choose jobs that use both but focus on either... I would expect such jobs to pay extremely well and there to be plenty of them, even if your current skills are a bit rusty!?! Maybe you're just overly reluctant to start looking for other jobs?

I've been browsing jobs for the month or two. I also browsed jobs when I was in my previous position. I'm not finding many jobs that fit my experience/skills.

I don't have any financial licenses or experience. I have a minor in business admin, but that doesn't mean much on a resume. So hardcore financial jobs aren't really an option. A tech job in a financial field could be good though.

The problem I'm finding with tech jobs is that they want an expert in a given technology. I have experience in Neoxam and FileNet, which are not very common. I would have to take an entry level job, but I'm just able to support my family now (with the hope of one day being able to retire). I'm also finding it much more difficult to learn new stacks as I'm getting older.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#370

Post by sib »

RotANobot wrote: post #222
cpeterso wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard about a call center that rewarded customer service agents for short calls, so workers started immediately hanging up on some calls to bring their average call duration down.

> I heard about a call center that rewarded customer service agents for short calls Almost all call centres reward agents for short calls.

Smart companies optimize something more like "percent of calls resolved on first contact" (or "1 - percent of calls requiring the customer to call back").
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