Ask HN: Do we really need performance feedback?

#1

Post by ali_ibrahim » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 12:28 PM UTC

Hi, In companies i have seen 360 degree performance review system where coworkers rate each other. However, this activity is not useful as everybody remembers the most recent performance and give feedback based upon that and sometimes it is biased where coworkers rate each other well. There are continuous feedback solutions as well but just on organization level.

My question is: in order to grow professionally, is feedback 'really' an importance factor in our growth? Is there another effective way to get it? Anonymous or known? Is this problem fixable because usually employees don't really pay attention to it feedback obtained through such process

Re: Ask HN: Do we really need performance feedback?

#2

Post by joshyeager » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 12:48 PM UTC

Yes, feedback is essential for growth. Without it, you can't grow any farther or faster than your own ability to evaluate yourself and decide how to improve.

Annual performance reviews aren't a good feedback tool. They are much too slow, and usually also too big and generalized. What you really need is fast specific feedback (within a week, focused on one event, action-focused).

With that said, if you want to grow, don't ignore your annual review. It may be the only feedback you get from some people, so analyze it and extract whatever information you can to help yourself grow.

If you're a manager and your organization requires performance reviews, it's probably not worth the effort to fight them. Instead, work on giving your team feedback fast, specific throughout the year to help them grow. And do a good job on the annual reviews for their other purpose, which is recording performance for salary and promotion decisions.

Re: Ask HN: Do we really need performance feedback?

#3

Post by wsc981 » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 1:22 PM UTC

I am not sure.

Perhaps for people that want to grow their roles in organisations, it's important. As a freelancer, I am happy to live without this ritual. In the past, before I became freelancer, I dreaded these reviews, as I suspected often these performance reviews could be politically charged and not necessarily deal with my performance (for example a manager might tell me I need to improve some aspects for a raise - I might have to suck up to some manager to get more chance for a big raise, when a limited budget is available for a group of employees).

As a freelancer I am free to decide on the aspects I want to improve on and as such I don't need a manager to help me with this. This makes me much happier.

Re: Ask HN: Do we really need performance feedback?

#4

Post by ali_ibrahim » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 2:29 PM UTC

joshyeager wrote: post #2

Yes, feedback is essential for growth. Without it, you can't grow any farther or faster than your own ability to evaluate yourself and decide how to improve. Annual performance reviews aren't a good feedback tool. They are much too slow, and usually also too big and generalized. What you really need is fast specific feedback (within a week, focused on one event, action-focused). With that said, if you want to grow, d…

Thanks for your insights! I generally agree that feedback is important. Theoretically people should follow and gain from it. I started pleasantfish.com, a skills feedback platform where people could get anonymous feedback from their current and previous colleagues about their skills and qualities. But i generally saw people are either not interested in getting them reviewed much and even if they get feedback they are not much interested in improving upen feedback(asked through user feedback) which actually brought me to this question.

So i think somehow feedback has to be actionable and gives a plan of action to user in such a manner that he effortlessly tries to improve those things in his daily routine be it reading related articles or what. But users generally tend to be lazy which is why feedback in the end seems to be useless for them.

Re: Ask HN: Do we really need performance feedback?

#5

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 2:29 PM UTC

joshyeager wrote: post #2

Yes, feedback is essential for growth. Without it, you can't grow any farther or faster than your own ability to evaluate yourself and decide how to improve. Annual performance reviews aren't a good feedback tool. They are much too slow, and usually also too big and generalized. What you really need is fast specific feedback (within a week, focused on one event, action-focused). With that said, if you want to grow, d…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Do we really need performance feedback?

#6

Post by ali_ibrahim » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 2:32 PM UTC

wsc981 wrote: post #3

I am not sure. Perhaps for people that want to grow their roles in organisations, it's important. As a freelancer, I am happy to live without this ritual. In the past, before I became freelancer, I dreaded these reviews, as I suspected often these performance reviews could be politically charged and not necessarily deal with my performance (for example a manager might tell me I need to improve some aspects for a rais…

As a freelancer, its totally different. For them, i think recommendations and reviews are definitely way more important from clients which allows you to build a profile.

Re: Ask HN: Do we really need performance feedback?

#7

Post by joshyeager » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 7:28 PM UTC

ali_ibrahim wrote: post #4

joshyeager wrote: post #2

Yes, feedback is essential for growth. Without it, you can't grow any farther or faster than your own ability to evaluate yourself and decide how to improve. Annual performance reviews aren't a good feedback tool. They are much too slow, and usually also too big and generalized. What you really need is fast specific feedback (within a week, focused on one event, action-focused). With that said, if you want to grow, d…

Thanks for your insights! I generally agree that feedback is important. Theoretically people should follow and gain from it. I started pleasantfish.com, a skills feedback platform where people could get anonymous feedback from their current and previous colleagues about their skills and qualities. But i generally saw people are either not interested in getting them reviewed much and even if they get feedback they are…

Oh, ok. I was mostly talking about how an individual can get maximum benefit from feedback. One of the biggest sources of growth for me has been actively engaging and acting on the feedback I receive. For more on that, I strongly recommend Thanks for the Feedback by Sheila Heen.

You're right that it's hard to get others to learn from feedback if they don't actively work at it. You can make your feedback easier to understand and more action-oriented. But if they're lazy or even just focused differently, your feedback to them won't be very effective.

As a manager, I think it's still worthwhile to give as much feedback as I can. Some of it might be heard and acted on, which will help the receiver grow.

Re: Ask HN: Do we really need performance feedback?

#8

Post by drakonka » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 9:04 PM UTC

Feedback from my direct managers is fairly important for me. Anonymous feedback from some peers helps with that as it gives the manager an idea of what working with me is like to my coworkers. If I'm doing my job well I want to know about it because it reminds me not to doubt myself and stay on course. If I need to do something different I want to know about it early so that I can course-correct before it becomes a problem.

Re: Ask HN: Do we really need performance feedback?

#9

Post by ali_ibrahim » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:50 AM UTC

drakonka wrote: post #8

Feedback from my direct managers is fairly important for me. Anonymous feedback from some peers helps with that as it gives the manager an idea of what working with me is like to my coworkers. If I'm doing my job well I want to know about it because it reminds me not to doubt myself and stay on course. If I need to do something different I want to know about it early so that I can course-correct before it becomes a p…

I have a rhetorical question here. When you say that anonymous feedback gives manager the idea of what working with me is like to my coworkers, do you think this information is useful for and should actually be allowed to share with potential employers and recruiting managers? Shouldn't they have a right to this information? For example: when a candidate mentions "references" on his resume, they are always meant to give positive feedback about them which is why again its broken. However, imagine of a platform allowing users to get anonymous 360 feedback from former and current colleagues and this information to be only shareable with recruiting manager of jobs they apply on. If a user shows certain transition and improvements ij their qualities then that would mean they're really working on the feedback they receive and as a hiring manager i would definitely want to hire that guy. Problem with that is a lot of people would never want this information to go out and made available to the hiring comitttees as it will reveal too much about them. However, that's the only way i find this fixable!

Re: Ask HN: Do we really need performance feedback?

#10

Post by ali_ibrahim » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:56 AM UTC

joshyeager wrote: post #7

ali_ibrahim wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your insights! I generally agree that feedback is important. Theoretically people should follow and gain from it. I started pleasantfish.com, a skills feedback platform where people could get anonymous feedback from their current and previous colleagues about their skills and qualities. But i generally saw people are either not interested in getting them reviewed much and even if they get feedback they are…

Oh, ok. I was mostly talking about how an individual can get maximum benefit from feedback. One of the biggest sources of growth for me has been actively engaging and acting on the feedback I receive. For more on that, I strongly recommend Thanks for the Feedback by Sheila Heen. You're right that it's hard to get others to learn from feedback if they don't actively work at it. You can make your feedback easier to und…

I still think if it incentivizes users in a very straightforward way then this is useful to them. In my reply to drakonka, i mention how it can be used in the career to be a super useful thing not only to them but to the companies where they work or intend to work as well. Do you think it should be done that way?