Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews
online.wsj.com
Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews
#2The worst is when corporate decides in advance that a certain distribution of rankings needs to be done, so managers need to give average and poor ratings to some of the team regardless of if the employees really deserve it.
By having a fixed distribution isn't management pre determining that a certain percentage of the employees are sub par performers? If they believe that's the case shouldn't they be actively trying to solve that problem? Shouldn't they expect everyone to be giving outstanding performance?
Re: Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews
#3Well if you don't like it you can always quit. Nobody likes whiners. Be a winner instead.
Re: Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews
#4Well if you don't like it you can always quit. Nobody likes whiners. Be a winner instead.
Criticizing bad ideas isn't whining, and if there was ever an idea in need of criticism it's the conventional performance review process.
Re: Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews
#5The worst is when corporate decides in advance that a certain distribution of rankings needs to be done, so managers need to give average and poor ratings to some of the team regardless of if the employees really deserve it. By having a fixed distribution isn't management pre determining that a certain percentage of the employees are sub par performers? If they believe that's the case shouldn't they be actively tryin…
This reminds me of the experiences of GE under Jack Welch, with his "rank-and-yank" initiative: 10 percent, each year, gets fired. It relies on the faulty assumption that the percentage of good vs. bad employees is constant.
First year, you can fire 10% without much complaint, because most of the people you're getting rid of are deadwood. Second year, it's a bit harder. Third year, the obvious deadwood is gone and nobody wants to lay off 10% of their workers. This is when people start getting pissed off.
The enforced rank distribution is just there to make it easier to fire people. They're afraid of termination lawsuits that might occur if someone gets fired with a trail of 4s and 5s.
Re: Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews
#6The worst is when corporate decides in advance that a certain distribution of rankings needs to be done, so managers need to give average and poor ratings to some of the team regardless of if the employees really deserve it. By having a fixed distribution isn't management pre determining that a certain percentage of the employees are sub par performers? If they believe that's the case shouldn't they be actively tryin…
This reminds me of the experiences of GE under Jack Welch, with his "rank-and-yank" initiative: 10 percent, each year, gets fired. It relies on the faulty assumption that the percentage of good vs. bad employees is constant. First year, you can fire 10% without much complaint, because most of the people you're getting rid of are deadwood. Second year, it's a bit harder. Third year, the obvious deadwood is gone and no…
Not coincidentally, Enron also used this model. I think that this is the worst idea possible. It encourages employees to compete with one another rather than working as a team.
Re: Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews
#7It promotes kiss ass mentality and the only people left are the ones who blindly follow the boss.
If a company ever needs to have Performance reviews, 360 degree reviews are good. The manager also gets to be reviewed by the subordinates anonymously and quickly every one knows where the trust is missing. This eliminates all the managers who are promoted by randomness, and really do not have any leadership skills but politically survive.
Rarely Performance reviews are conducted for good intentions, they are a tool to conduct lay offs and pocket million Dollar bonuses to executives who can show this as money saved.
Re: Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews
#8It promotes kiss ass mentality and the only people left are the ones who blindly follow the boss. If a company ever needs to have Performance reviews, 360 degree reviews are good. The manager also gets to be reviewed by the subordinates anonymously and quickly every one knows where the trust is missing. This eliminates all the managers who are promoted by randomness, and really do not have any leadership skills but p…
Even 360s are terrible the higher up you get in the company. Big Big Boss (BBB) will not fire Big Boss (BB) no matter how many subordinates say BB is bad because in many cases BB is doing BBB's dirty work.
In flatter corporate structures, it's very likely that BB is the founder/owner/board member and so they're not going to go no matter what the feedback is.
In those situations: kiss ass or quit.
Re: Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews
#9I've actually been hoping that a formal review process will be put into place soon at my current company, and I've been asking my boss(es) about it regularly. This is because I was under the impression that a formal review is the only way for me to get a raise. From that perspective, it's definitel in the company's best interest to dodge this as long as possible: upon reviewing me, they either have to tell me I don't deserve what I think I deserve, or they have to pay me more.
Is my understanding of the process wrong? Granted, this isn't a GE kind of company-- we have employees in the hundreds, not thousands-- so hopefully it's different.
Re: Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews
#10The worst is when corporate decides in advance that a certain distribution of rankings needs to be done, so managers need to give average and poor ratings to some of the team regardless of if the employees really deserve it. By having a fixed distribution isn't management pre determining that a certain percentage of the employees are sub par performers? If they believe that's the case shouldn't they be actively tryin…
This reminds me of the experiences of GE under Jack Welch, with his "rank-and-yank" initiative: 10 percent, each year, gets fired. It relies on the faulty assumption that the percentage of good vs. bad employees is constant. First year, you can fire 10% without much complaint, because most of the people you're getting rid of are deadwood. Second year, it's a bit harder. Third year, the obvious deadwood is gone and no…
Gigantic-scale businesses are different than startups, and with different problems and different avenues and different dynamics.
As troubling as I find management built on an up-or-out career treadmill and deliberately roiling the employees and the bungee-bosses and the management schools, these are a counterintuitive and cut-throat and effective way to keep the management and the organizations from getting complacent.
Commission sales folks are accustomed to the up-or-out model, too.
This doesn't scale down to smaller businesses nor to startups, nor is it usually particularly necessary. And for all the reasons discussed elsewhere in replies elsewhere here. But the dynamics in bigger organizations are different than smaller ones.
(And no, I never thought I'd be sort-of defending this approach, either.)