Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time • Hacker News Board

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#321

Post by johnkchow » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

beachy wrote: post #241

philipodonnell wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I'm the Engineering Manager for the Reviews team at Reflektive (performance management SAAS), and I have to say that this article rings true with me personally and aligns with our company's mission. The recent trend when it comes to performance management is that companies a) no longer want the feedback process to be centrally driven and b) feedback between managers and direct reports should be given on a more frequent cadence. The latter point is especially challenging, because no software out there can magically can change an individual's behavior; the company culture[1] has to exist first to foster it.

Every company is different, but for some traditional companies Reflektive works with them to initially roll out Performance Reviews because companies have dedicated budget for it. Then, once they're comfortable with our tools, our Customer Success team partners with them to craft a roll-out plan for our "Check Ins" product, which is a lightweight feedback tool intended on used every 3 months. For Check Ins, it's meant to be purely about development; at Reflektive, our Check Ins contain no performance rating scores nor do we use it for compensation (we have a separate process for that).

The good news is that a LOT of companies, ranging from small startups to large 50k-employee enterprise companies, actually want to shift towards a more employee-driven model. Our team's number one priority right now is to empower employees/managers to own their own feedback process and to increase the frequency of feedback between managers and their teams. I'm super excited about what's coming down the pipeline!

[1]https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1df5MALZKZU6lOeIXUiO-...

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#322

Post by johnkchow » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 3:30 PM UTC

I'm the Engineering Manager for the Reviews team at Reflektive (performance management SAAS), and I have to say that this article rings true with me personally and aligns with our company's mission. The recent trend when it comes to performance management is that companies a) no longer want the feedback process to be centrally driven and b) feedback between managers and direct reports should be given on a more frequent cadence. The latter point is especially challenging, because no software out there can magically can change an individual's behavior; the company culture[1] has to exist first to foster it.

Every company is different, but for some traditional companies Reflektive works with them to initially roll out Performance Reviews because companies have dedicated budget for it. Then, once they're comfortable with our tools, our Customer Success team partners with them to craft a roll-out plan for our "Check Ins" product, which is a lightweight feedback tool intended on used every 3 months. For Check Ins, it's meant to be purely about development; at Reflektive, our Check Ins contain no performance rating scores nor do we use it for compensation (we have a separate process for that).

The good news is that a LOT of companies, ranging from small startups to large 50k-employee enterprise companies, actually want to shift towards a more employee-driven model. Our team's number one priority right now is to empower employees/managers to own their own feedback process and to increase the frequency of feedback between managers and their teams. I'm super excited about what's coming down the pipeline!

[1]https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1df5MALZKZU6lOeIXUiO-...

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#323

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #319

mdip wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My tip: Don't. I stick with three general rules: Don't ever complain. Don't complain about coworkers, the quality of work they do, their attitudes. That guy/gal who complains to you about everyone you work with is complaining about you to everyone else. When you do complain about others, people assume you're complaining about them, too. The only way to be a "safe person" is to avoid this reputation. Don't complain ab…

The redux version of your comment is "Don't show your emotions in front of others, but actively plan your moves in silence"

Laws 3, 4, 5 in the 48 laws of power.

Also when you gossip to one person about another or let that person gossip around you, you are "committing" to that person and taking sides - something else you shouldn't do.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#324

Post by slededit » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:19 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #314

slededit wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I you don't make time for your long term goals your career is going to stall. If project work is really taking all your time then you need to push back.

Yeah, but if you have a personal goal of something like "implement some machine learning" and a year goes by where there's no applicable use case for machine learning, then you're SOL. It can be worthwhile to mention this as a personal goal, but if you make it a goal post for career advancement, you're likely to fail.

If your goal is to make a move away from your team then you won't get a lot of help I agree. Usually there are mutually beneficial goals to you and your boss. Those are the sorts of things you can expect help with.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#325

Post by citrablue » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:33 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #216

citrablue wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subtle adjustment, I think the real cause is scaling human relationships. IT enables this scaling. So if interpersonal trust scales sub-linearly with number of connections, it's not really IT corroding trust, it's what IT enables.

It's ... complicated. More than I can get into here, or eveen than I've really worrked out. Short version is that in the absence of advanced comms, you have no option but to extend trust . I'm thinking here where inteervals might have been months, eveen years. (Historically, sea passage was not possible from November through May.) Instead you had trust-establishing institutions, a role usually filled by religion, in…

Trust isn't a binary, it can be extended to differing degrees. In absence of advanced comms, you have to extend trust, but how far? That comes with an opportunity cost -- I wouldn't loan money to someone I'd only communicated by 8 week delayed handwritten letters, but I (possibly) would do that to someone I'd talked to on Skype for an equivalent amount of time.

(This might not be rational.)

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#326

Post by saltybytes » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #302

lskadf93idk wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have performance reviews not annually, but every few years. My last review, the head of our division got really angry with me and gave me a very negative, punitive review. What I am infuriated about is that never in that few years did I receive any negative feedback, and I tried to do exactly what our subdivision had decided as a group to do, and what the immediate superior had wanted. My last review was glowing,…

I had something similar happen at my old company, an 8 person startup. I was more or less asked to quit (coincidently I was planning to hand my notice in that day anyway) by the CEO. Never once had the CEO actually pulled me aside or talked to me about his perceived problems with me. He was perfectly happy with the quantity and quality of work I put out, but apparently there were cultural and attitude issues or somet…

Same here but different reason. I worked in Software Engineering for a financial organization when I announced the arrival of my first child to head of HR (Monday). My performance review was scheduled for Tuesday but my manager postponed to Friday. I was fired (because of my baby) that Friday by head of HR instead of sitting down in 1-1 with my manager or CTO. They just didn't have the guts to tell me that my productivity will drop b/c of lack of sleep, etc. Shitty move but lesson learned: don't announce the due date of your unborn child BEFORE a performance review! Better don't announce it at all if you wanna keep your job.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#327

Post by aassddffasdf » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #200

aassddffasdf wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think you're misreading. My reading (consistent with the one you replied to) is: a higher-level manager somewhat arbitrarily comes out of the blue and wants to fire one of your team. You have no paperwork to back the idea that the request is misplaced/misguided.

Let's look at the original line again: "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?" So 'someone' isn't defined, but from context, my assumption is that 'someone' is their direct manager (who works for you), since it's mentioned that 'manager's recommendation' is all that's known.…

I agree that your interpretation has a lot of weight. However, you're forgetting a couple of things:

-. could be a request from the VP's peer; i.e., another VP. Or from someone in a lateral org (such as HR).

-. the manager himself in your interpretation of events should have the power at least to fire (if not to promote).

The fact is: it was a very confusingly worded post and we've probably wasted more time on it than it warrants. :)

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#328

Post by exelius » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

alexbecker wrote: post #233

exelius wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the flip side, when you do define these things formally, you end up with those who can and will game the formal rules more effectively outperforming those who don't. This isn't fair either, and there are probably all sorts of biases in who is willing and able to game such metrics (for example, I have seen men game them more often). Evaluating performance is tough. Evaluating performance without greatly distorting…

By not defining them, you leave the priorities of the business up to what amounts to a popularity contest with each manager. Raises and promotions thus get handed out to the people who are most likable.

Senior executives (usually VP and above) at major companies typically sign contracts explicitly outlining their goals for the next 12-24 months. They are incentivized or fired based on meeting those goals. And it’s the executives who demand this, not the companies.

Point being, if the executives are demanding clear performance goals for themselves, it’s probably good practice. Managers typically are not responsive to demands from below, so guess where the mandate has to come from.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#329

Post by exelius » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

BadThink6655321 wrote: post #231

exelius wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can signal virtue by actually being virtuous, or you can just talk about it. Give me somebody who can actually do the work instead of talking about how great they are — or about how unfair others are to them.

Once you start to manage people for real, you’ll realize that the truth is often very subjective and it’s easy to appear awesome to your boss without being so when he has 8 other people to evaluate.

Getting to the bottom of it all is hard, if not impossible given the power imbalance. So yeah, virtue signaling is important when different cultures teach you to show virtue in different ways.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#330

Post by exelius » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

Thriptic wrote: post #242

exelius wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’s more that there are people who could be rockstars, but because they weren’t immersed in startup culture or entrepreneurship since childhood, they don’t know what’s important to the business. That’s why clear goals and responsibilities are important.