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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

#91

Post by didibus »

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.

I love when it happens like that, but many companies have managers rotating very quickly. So you are left in the dust. Its only fair for the previous manager to formalize their thinking and position on how they felt about your performance. So that the next manager can see that and you're not ending back to square one.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#92

Post by FollowSteph3 »

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.

Why do raises and bonuses have to match up with yearly performance reviews? Why not make them more immediate. Great launch everyone here’s a bonus. You went above and beyond for this release so we’d like to give you this bonus. You’ve been working very hard the last while and we think you deserve a raise. Nothing says it has to be at specific times.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#93

Post by internetman55 »

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…

That indicates to me that you're probably a bad manager

When I was broke and had no connections, I was willing to work the way you described.

Now that I have options, I'm not willing to expend that energy when I could save it for gym, girlfriend, self-education after hours, etc.

If I'm broke and need to switch to another industry or you're paying me multiple times my next best offer I'll do that.

Otherwise, no, my manager needs to do his job instead of asking me to do it for him

That said I'm now entering a graduate school and am willing to do that in this context because I'm intrinsically interested in learning the applied math I'll be working on

Software jobs, no

You would probably need to hire people who are interested in running their own business im a few years and mentor them towards that end to get that kind of commitment in my opinion

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#94

Post by osrec »

emodendroket wrote: post #71
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.

I'd say that, in the professional world, most want to be part of a team because they want to trade the upside potential for stability and shorter, more predictable hours and a smaller, more defined scope of responsibility. You can't expect "change the world" passion from these people when they've traded that away as part of the bargain.

I think a lot of people prefer to be part of a team as it helps spread the responsibility (and more importantly, blame) around. I've worked a few "high powered" corporate jobs, and most so-called team-players at that level are really just team-blamers, yet conniving enough to single-handedly take credit for anything good that happens, while still appearing humble. It's pretty much why I quit and started my own firm. I like having the responsibility on my shoulders and enjoy putting my neck on the line. When I get something wrong, I'm only answerable to me (rather than be reprimanded by some know-it-all boss), and I can pick myself up quickly, reaim and try again. It's a less stressful experience with better results. For my staff, we discuss things, but I will never ever talk down to them or reprimand them like kids. If I do, I bet they'll just leave as soon as they can, as I did.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#95

Post by throwaway5752 »

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.

"People aren't as idealistic as they used to be because they were taken advantage of and learned from it."

Those of us that are trying to build high-performing organizations will still avoid and remove those types of people. And we will continue to reward and not take advantage of our people to fill our end of the bargain.

Further, those of us that are also highly self-motivated will continue to leave bad situations, not become slackers in response to being taken advantage of.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#96

Post by agumonkey »

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 fit this profile a bit, and it's hard to get hired because that quality is not a tag on a resume.

Alas it even caused me harm in college, teachers weren't very welcoming my enthusiasm.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#97

Post by sametmax »

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.

This assumes there is now way to find a company that fairly reward the effort you make, at least according to what you are content with.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#98

Post by nilkn »

organsnyder wrote: post #40
jmartrican wrote: post #25

I disagree with this dudes blog. I love my reviews. I seek criticism so that I can improve and like the positive feedback because it helps motivate. But maybe I am an outlier. And as a person who has to give reviews, I want to tell people where they need to work on and praise their strengths. I tend to work with people from East Coast finance world, and they not too keen on the touchy feely story telling stuff. Its s…

My concern (which I think is at least partially shared by this blogger) is the rigidness of formal annual reviews. A formal review should contain no surprises—if a formal review is the first time you've heard a certain piece of feedback (especially negative), then your management is shirking one of their primary responsibilities. Given an environment where feedback is frequent and useful, the formal annual review bec…

When feedback is continuous and healthy throughout the year, I think the review itself acts just as an amplifier. It lets you really praise someone officially in a big way for good work. If someone has been seriously troublesome, it should never be the first time that has come up, but it lets you magnify how important it is that their performance issues get resolved. In that sense, it can serve a dual role as a sort of PIP. The review is also an opportunity for the manager to sift through all that continuous feedback over the entire past year and condense the important stuff down into some easy-to-understand big picture ideas.

Reviews can also be an opportunity for the direct report to get career plans in writing from their boss. For instance, if you want a promotion to X, the result of the review may be a written plan by your boss on how you can achieve that promotion.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#99

Post by koliber »

This post speaks to me as I've spent the last 6+ years working on making performance reviews better. There are many things wrong with performance reviews. For me, the worst thing is that usually they are done only once a year.

We tend to remember most recent things and assign them greater value. This means that if a below-average colleague did something phenomenal a month before the review, they will receive a more favorable review. Along the same vein, if a well-performing colleague slips up right before review time, this will unfairly penalize her. Annual performance reviews are bad because they are done 50 weeks too late.

We've been trying to address this at the current company I am working with. At 15Five we are building tools for continuous employee feedback and performance assessment.

There should be multiple communication processes going on all at once, with different cadence, that all add up to one's perception of an employee's performance.

We have weekly check ins, which are meant to be answered in less than 15 minutes and reviewed in less than five (hence the name!). People set goals one week and rate them the next. This has a biweekly cadence. Longer terms objectives and key results can be tracked as well, usually on a monthly or quarterly. All this feeds into a performance review, which ideally should happen quarterly, but can be done less often. The difference is that you don't spend a week before the performance review is due trying to remember how each of your team members did. You have that right in front of you, as you've spent the last X months interacting with them, having conversations, and earmarking notable feedback and conversations.

Our customers are happy with this process as an alternative to annual performance reviews.

Re: Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time

#100

Post by gowld »

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 find it hard to find someone who works as well as you do but wants to work for less than equal partnership? Interesting.
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