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Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

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Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#241

Post by beachy »

philipodonnell wrote: post #108
riazrizvi wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is a nice example of quality clickbait. Title: 'Performance Reviews Are A Waste Of Time', ooh contentious. The lede, 'formal performance reviews are a waste of time...', switched 'performance review' for 'formal performance review' while you weren't looking. Now he's set up a new context for his answer - 'a different type of performance review' (where the process starts with a self-assessment)! Lovely.

Bonus points if the author runs a consulting company specializing in alternative performance reviews or a SAAS startup building software to facilitate them. :-)

We do the latter, and I am currently reading this thread to gain ideas.

Please, if anyone has ideas about what a good performance management SaaS would look like - share!

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#242

Post by Thriptic »

exelius wrote: post #168
Thriptic wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That leads to a lot of group think, and products that are built for a very small subset of users — so there is real business value in diversity. I am not sure this is true to the extent that people want it to be. You see the main benefits of diversity when groups of users use products in different ways depending on who they are. However, a large majority of products are used the same way by all people (almost all b…

I’m not talking about preferential hiring; I’m talking about removing bias from the hiring process. This must be done by the company because I guarantee the prospective employee is doing everything they can to try to virtue-signal the company in the ways they know work. There’s an entire industry devoted to helping women and minorities better integrate with the business climate (Lean In, et al). I guarantee these peo…

I agree that companies should try to help all of their employees grow and thrive, that people don't have the same cultural starting conditions, and that company led efforts need to be tailored differently for different people / groups.

It's somewhat unclear to me what you are asking managers to do in terms of removing bias. It seems natural to preferentially reward people who push the bounds of the position, who add out sized value, and who work hard. Not rewarding these people for their efforts will lead to them leaving and finding other jobs that will reward that behavior. People have different priorities in life, different aspirations, and I'm not sure why this is a problem. Those who want to work very hard and don't pursue familial obligations lose out on the benefits of having children or spending time with a SO and in return get rewarded career wise. There's an opportunity cost either way.

If I'm totally missing the point here or am off base, please correct me.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#243

Post by GFischer »

scarface74 wrote: post #190
mdip wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anything in your performance review is a surprise, then I have failed as a manager. I hear that a lot and tend to agree with the statement. I even used to say it in the opposite "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". And though I'm going to counter it, it's not inaccurate --…

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…

Any tips you can share on how you improved your political game?

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#244

Post by ajiang »

elipsey wrote: post #157
markbnj wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're a VP and suddenly someone asks, "Hey, can you promote or fire Person X?" What are you to go off of? Just a manager's recommendation? And you think perf reviews are biased? This is why I don't work for large orgs anymore. If you can't trust the manager's recommendation then why is that person a manager, in a position of power over people's lives? It's almost like acknowledging that you're too big to know w…

> If you're a VP and suddenly someone asks, "Hey, can you promote or fire Person X?" Why would anyone suggest such a thing? Absent new information shouldn't the default action be to humanely leave person X alone so they can keep doing work and paying their bills without costing the company more? I must be very naive in the ways of management... EDIT: This is a real question; what's with the down votes? Should I expec…

I think the down votes are from your response appearing fairly uninformed.

Growth and attrition are a regular part of a person's life cycle at a company. You ask if someone should be promoted both because companies need adept managers and because most employees look for growth trajectory. You ask if someone should be fired because companies need to continue refining their workforce for skill and cultural fit, or because it is financially necessary.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#246

Post by beachy »

elipsey wrote: post #215
majormajor wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misread. You're being asked to imagine yourself as the executive - you're the person with firing authority. A manager who works for you asks you to fire someone on their team. There are a hundred people on various teams in your group, you don't have first-hand knowledge of all of their performance. You want to have a system in place for making sure this is a fair request, vs "we argued a few times the last week"…

Thank you, I think I see what you mean: a manager recommends an employee for promotion OR a manager recommends an employee for firing. My reading of the question might sound ridiculous, but I have been in situations like that in the past. I once had a contract-to-hire job in which the contract supposedly stipulated that I was guaranteed a full-time permanent position if I passed the six-month performance review, othe…

There is no "management". There's just people, in positions or more or less power over others.

At some companies, these people are well selected, trained, and caring individuals who understand who to build and nurture teams.

At others, these people are dicks who have got into their position via Peter Principle. being frat buddies with CEO etc. who view workers as resources to be squeezed and discarded.

And everywhere in between.

Sounds like you got unlucky at that place.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#247

Post by mathgladiator »

bitL wrote: post #37
rrggrr wrote: post #22

I was a young employee during a recession, and finding work was difficult. When I landed my first job I was I was grateful and focused on ways I might make my work contribute to the company's bottom line, by pushing the limits of my job description and tasks to ensure my role impacted revenue and value creation. I appreciated training and feedback, but forced myself to deliver results autonomously through self-teachi…

> I try to hire the same type of person. It is a profile increasingly hard to find. Anyone with your profile should run their own business. It's unrealistic to expect somebody to work long hours, over-deliver for "maybe someday"-promises. People aren't as idealistic as they used to be because they were taken advantage of and learned from it.

That's incorrect, he is expressing what he is able to manage. Will this limit him? Or not? That is the question.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#248

Post by Taniwha »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #235
bauerd wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Cost Of Living Adjustment

yes, exactly that - basically correcting for inflation

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#249

Post by beachy »

chatmasta wrote: post #75
typomatic wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, they're mostly meant as a way for HR to have a paper trail to fire people. That's the only real reason for them to exist, and any good that managers do with them is incidental.

Such a paper trail can be useful in more situations than just firing someone. For example, consider the values of performance reviews in aggregate. I can think of many reasons why upper management may want to analyze aggregate trends of performance reviews throughout the company, broken down by team, department, manager etc. They can use those trends as data-driven feedback on policy and personnel changes. That is, t…

You can also use the information to optimise your workforce.

Lets say you're a big home improvement chain opening a new store. You need to get 150 workers to staff the new store.

Do you want to hire 250 people cold and hand the new store off to them? No.

You want to take the top 100 performers from nearby stores, who are busting for a chance to prove themselves, and pepper pot them into the new store, in positions of team leadership, seniors, etc. (And then do a bunch of hiring for the remaining 150, and the 100 to replace the ones you just transferred).

These are the sorts of win-win efficiencies you can pull off if you have good performance data for employees.

(Also astonishingly rare to see in action in the real world, but that's another story :)

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#250

Post by scarface74 »

GFischer wrote: post #243
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…

Any tips you can share on how you improved your political game?

Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power. There are one or two that I feel are unethical (Law #7 in particular).
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