Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time • Hacker News Board

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#51

Post by xenihn » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

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…

>It is a profile increasingly hard to find

Only in an employee's market.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#52

Post by typomatic » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

daveslash wrote: post #12

I've been working professionally for over a decade, and it never occurred to me that performance reviews were meant to provide career advice. I thought they were meant to help you understand if your are meeting the expectations for your current capacity. For example, as an engineer at company X, is my development-time vs customer-support-time supposed to be 50/50, 80/20, 20/80, etc.. and how well am I aligning with t…

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.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#53

Post by AFNobody » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

kyriakos wrote: post #42

bitL wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Not everyone has the skills to run their own business. Some people prefer to be part of a team and not at the top of the pyramid. They get satisfaction by contributing.

> Not everyone has the skills to run their own business. Some people prefer to be part of a team and not at the top of the pyramid. They get satisfaction by contributing.

Working 60+ hour weeks for a paycheck that can get gotten elsewhere provides no one with satisfaction. Anyone who rides programmers that hard will find the programmer firing his manager.

Almost none of the people that push you to do that are worth working for. Even a startup that provides RSUS.

If you want what the OP wants in an employee, you need to pay a minimum of a 30% premium over what they can get elsewhere.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#54

Post by spicymaki » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

I agree with the assessment, but do not feel that the proposed solution will fix it. Performance reviews have a lot of management overhead and are done poorly in many companies. Many managers do not want to give honest feedback, because it takes time and employees may not be able to handle it. Committee based employee ranking leads to infighting, sabotaging, and low morale.

Perhaps we need to just accept that the compensation systems will never be fair, and managers will just promote and pay the people they like and fire or keep stagnant the employees they don't like.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#55

Post by arcticbull » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

make3 wrote: post #31

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…

you essentially want someone who can read your mind

The best/worst advice I ever received was "you're doing a great job of what I ask you to, now I need you to do what I don't ask you to" -- at the time, it made no sense. Now, it's a core part of my work style. Developing autonomy is a very valuable skill, and I think that's what OP is driving at. It's also not something that'd been developed during my education.

I agree that performance reviews aren't particularly helpful because feedback should be delivered as you go, in the moment, with actionable and relevant examples.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#56

Post by lotyrin » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

chris_va wrote: post #27

jedberg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You still need some way to tell people whether they are promoted or how big a bonus they get and why it happened that way. If you've been giving them actionable feedback throughout the year, then it should be as simple as "here is your new salary and your new title" and no one should be surprised about anything.

When that works, it works well. When that fails (e.g. people disagree as to how they performed relative to their peers), it fails badly. Performance reviews (if done well) lower the risk of system breakdown. (Not to defend performance reviews explicitly--there may be a much better approach that accomplishes the same goal)

If scheduled infrequent conversations about that can adjust those expectations, wouldn't consistent frequent conversation adjust them sooner/easier?

In perfect world I'd have a mind-reading powered live dashboard I could check that shows a graph of anonymized averages of my perceived performance across broad categories (teams, peers vs subordinates vs leadership, etc.) and a single point for my direct report.

Getting feedback each year when there's no surprises feels like a formality and waste of time. In the rare case that there are any surprises it's disappointing and I get to make adjustments months late, having been left in the dark.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#57

Post by lacker » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #23

lacker wrote: post #18

What's the alternative, exactly? You still need some way to tell people whether they are promoted or how big a bonus they get and why it happened that way. Whether you call that communication a "performance review" or not seems like an irrelevant detail.

> You still need some way to tell people whether they are promoted or how big a bonus they get and why it happened that way. If you've been giving them actionable feedback throughout the year, then it should be as simple as "here is your new salary and your new title" and no one should be surprised about anything.

Sure. That's still a performance review. Performance reviews are usually unstressful and simple if you and your manager have had good communication for a while. That is the goal to aim for whether you call it a "performance review" or not.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#58

Post by tootie » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 5:35 PM UTC

I sorta agree. A lot of place do these very wrongly. I think goal-setting is a waste of time because project work usually sucks up all your bandwidth no matter what. Anonymous peer feedback can be very helpful. Really, you and your manager (or reports) should know what's going on pretty constantly and never been surprised by a year-end review. I think the formal processes are less about getting new information and more about giving HR a paper trail for handling complaints.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#59

Post by piyh » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 5:35 PM UTC

spicymaki wrote: post #54

I agree with the assessment, but do not feel that the proposed solution will fix it. Performance reviews have a lot of management overhead and are done poorly in many companies. Many managers do not want to give honest feedback, because it takes time and employees may not be able to handle it. Committee based employee ranking leads to infighting, sabotaging, and low morale. Perhaps we need to just accept that the com…

The biggest reasons for performance reviews in my mind are to serve as a mechanism for everyone to get a cost of living/merit raise at the same time and to leave a paper trail for when you need to fire someone. Having 2 years of "below expectations" will save a corporation's ass when an unlawful termination case pops up.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#60

Post by bharam » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 5:35 PM UTC

tudelo wrote: post #28

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…

It's not surprising it's hard to find. I think it helps if you are working in a place that rewards such initiative. In my experience, it is not always the case. How do you even screen someone for self-teaching and self-motivation by the way?

Self-teaching can be measured through asking probing questions about what the candidate does to keep up with new developments in their field. Self-motivation is harder to get at, but sometimes it helps to ask about what the candidate looks for in a role.