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Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

blog.bradfieldcs.com

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Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#61

Post by lacker »

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…

Someone who "needs" a review is typically not a good fit for my management style.

If your organization gets large enough, then out of necessity, you will have many different managers with many different styles. That is usually the point when a performance review system needs to become more formalized - it's important to be sure that in some ways, all managers are treating their reports similarly, even if it means some of them changing their default management style.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#62

Post by Swizec »

arcticbull wrote: post #55
make3 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 he…

> now I need you to do what I don’t ask you to

Now I need you to make me want to. And no that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to reward me, often it’s enough to feel like I won’t get in trouble for going the extra mile, or that at the very least it will be noticed when I do.

There’s only so often a person will give suggestions and extra effort to a lukewarm or negative response before they say fuck it and stop caring.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#64

Post by dfxm12 »

I always understood the performance review, at least in large corporations (not small companies or startups), not just to judge you individually, but more importantly to judge you against your peers.

In the context of judging us against our peers, it is isn't for us (so of course it's a waste of time for us), or our direct managers, but for upper management. The value there depends on the quality and candidness of feedback. Can this information be totally gleaned from task or ticket tracking systems? I don't think that tells the whole picture.

OK, so is it necessary for upper management to have this data? In a perfect world, this feedback data finds employees with great potential, ASAP and tracks their growth over time, from manager to manager and team to team, but since I'm a lowly professional and not upper management, I have no insight into how this is actually used.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#66

Post by [deleted] »

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)

[deleted]

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#68

Post by StaticRedux »

simplyinfinity wrote: post #35
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…

How do you distinguish those people during interviews? Are there any specific questions you ask?

Not the Op but I hire the same way and there is some questions I like to ask to gauge people's interest in "getting things done".

I like to ask about their passions outside of work. Video games? Sports? Communities they may be a part of?

I am not looking for passions that align with the company, I am looking for passion itself. Does this person like to dig into the details and figure out how something works and how they can make it better or do they just like something and not show much deeper interest? Do they tinker or try to make things better on the things they are passionate about? Do they even have things they are passionate about? (You'd be surprised how many people can't really answer this question, even in casual conversation.)

It's not full proof, but I've found that people that go the extra mile, people that are passionate and inquisitive and not always happy with the status quo, are people that are more likely to take the initiative when working on a project for me. At that point, it's my job to spark their interest in the product so they will (hopefully) apply that passion in the same way.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#69

Post by skj »

bitL wrote: post #47
kyriakos wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's in their best interest to acquire those skills, or keep being taken advantage of. A binary choice - that's the world we are living in right now.

> or keep being taken advantage of

Presumably they're getting paid for their work.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#70

Post by gaius »

True story: in my first real job first review my manager said “if I took a poll of your coworkers, you’d be sacked”. I was stunned, I thought I was doing good work and was well liked.

18 months I’m a team leader myself and they sent me on the course for doing reviews. And there they taught me the first thing you should always say is “if I took a poll...”

The whole system is toxic

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