Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

Post by BadThink6655321 » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 8:38 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #173

bkirkby wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He spoke about being a young man willing to put in the hours starting out to learn his craft. Yes, the young need to learn a lot after schooling just to keep up. After that, he spoke about figuring out how to provide the most value for the business. I've had a 25+ year career and can verify that everyone should follow this advice. Whatever hidden biases we are concerned about in the workplace, they all pale in compar…

It’s all virtue-signaling in the end, and a manager from the same background is going to be more receptive to virtue-signaling from their own cultural background than from someone with a different background. Formal reviews distill virtue signaling into a standard process with explicit rules rather than an informal set of norms that individuals may or may not be aware of.

Post by alexbecker » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 8:39 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #221

Declanomous wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are a lot of ways to make the rules explicit that don't require formal reviews. A formal review process can be equally biased by incentivizing people to game the system by targeting easy wins rather than tackling harder, more important problems. For instance, tackling existing bugs or documenting code often seems to be undervalued compared with writing new code, when writing new code often just introduc…

Regardless, defined performance metrics are better than none at all. You have to create the formality around performance evaluation or else you end up with those who understand the informal rules outperforming those who don’t simply because they grew up in a certain environment. I don’t think anyone would claim that’s fair, but that’s how the “meritocracy” works when you don’t define these things formally.

Post by andyjohnson0 » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 8:42 PM UTC

bauerd wrote: post #232

Taniwha wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in this biz for 40 years, I've had years of way above average salary jumps - I expect a COLA every year, not something unreasonable

What does COLA mean? I've no clue and googling the term just brings up soft drinks and cocaine. I guess a fancy term for bonus/raise?

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 8:43 PM UTC

Taniwha wrote: post #228

organicmultiloc wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you shouldn't frame your compensation in terms of a "COLA adjustment" although I'm quite sure your employer would prefer that meek mindset.

I've been in this biz for 40 years, I've had years of way above average salary jumps - I expect a COLA every year, not something unreasonable

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 8:47 PM UTC

sizzle wrote: post #230

scarface74 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I get a bad review, that's a signal that I need a new job, because I think I'm doing well and I must have a terrible manager if he'd wait a whole year to tell me otherwise This exactly. I've had two and half performance improvement plans in my 20 years. 1. My performance and attitude really did suck. I had been at a company too long (9 years), raises were anemic and the bonuses had gotten cut over the years to the…

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm still early in my career so it helps to hear this.