One of the main reasons I can’t do office work. I get so existential about it all. Even at this event yesterday about the future of the business, which was actually good, all I could of think about all the way through was how pointless it all was. Just made up stuff, and I don’t agree with reviewing adults in their work, if someone is shit then do something about it but if everyone else is doing well then that’s all you need to know.
im currently avoiding doing mine. got to do one as a manager this year for the first time, already told her to do the bare minimum as her old manager will be providing most input since shes only been with us for a month, and her old manager wont care and the best score she can get is ~developing~ coz she changed roles. waste of everyones time
Shitting it about mine TBH.
My boss is great and I’ve done work I’m very proud of, but my boss for the first half of the year was not great so that stands a good chance of messing things up for me.
Still, should find out in February, so not long now.
Yup, totally agree with this. I find them really useful in terms of reviewing where I am against where I want to be and to help me plan next steps career wise and how to get there. It’s useful to get my boss’ objective view on how I’m doing too.
do you reckon it’s something sociopathic managers came up with to demean staff, to make them take the time to write grovellingly about how great they are and beg for a good review even though the manager already knows all this stuff and has probably already decided?
i had a manager not long ago who just wrote ours for us cos she didn’t see the point in making us do it.
I find this part very challenging because my only career goals are to be mostly left alone to get on with it and to never be anyone’s manager.
Yep. And they also offer protection for both staff and managers. If you’re a member of staff and you can tangibly show how you’re performing within your review framework (assuming your objectives etc. have been written properly) then it makes it more difficult for you to be given performance warnings/get sacked on the whim of managers. Conversely if you’re a manager and you’ve got someone who’s underperforming you can actually show how and manage it that way.
Yep done right they’re good. But, alas, often they are not.
My sociopathic former boss volunteered to do all of the annual reviews in her first year after joining the firm, and made them all very negative because she believed that’s how you motivate people. Several people cried.
She’s now been promoted.
Yeah my work has scrapped the annual review shite I think but are going in more heavily on the development and career goals stuff. Oh god just leave me alone.
Just gone through our appraisal process where I also had the added bonus of making sure that my department (220 people) fit PERFECTLY on a distribution curve. What a horrible fucking job.
I’m my bosses assistant so supposed to arrange it for him. Haven’t had one for nearly 2 years. Happy with this.
Internal promotion processes can do one. If I want to move up, the easiest way is to apply for a job somewhere else. External candidates are always treated more favourably than internal.
There was a similar thing here - They expected that 70% would be on the intermediate grade, and my boss got a call from HR because it was only 69.5%
Absolutely.
The way things are done here are quite transparent and open and a two way dialogue between manager and employee. I’ve found it really refreshing.
It’s the opposite here - jobs will always be advertised internally for two weeks first before being advertised externally. There’s so many opportunities for progression that it serves as a real motivation to do well.
I totally realise my experience bucks the trend - I’ve been in those dead end roles before where hell will freeze over before anyone gets an internal promotion.
Before he retired my Dad was a project manager for IBM, he was asked to put together a team of all their best architects from around the country and then in appraisal season had to force a distribution curve and manage out the ‘lowest performers’ (of literally the best people in the organisation). Such bullshit.
Smarties I think
I don’t think I’m getting a proper one of these because appraisals line up with the end of my probation.
Been super needy and vocal about how afraid of appraisals/being fired I am, so my boss gives me loads of validation and praise and has assured me I won’t get fired and will get the mini promotion. So I think I’ll be fine; unfortunately I’m hyper neurotic about it still and get into a tiny panic when I think about it. (Tried to combat this by TAKING BACK CONTROL and instigating the scheduling of it.)
Apparently I always massively undersell myself at these things. That might be because I spend half my time dicking around on here and could achieve so much more. Find it pretty impossible to big myself up though.
I had this exact thing!
Them: How has it been going?
Me: I think I’m struggling and underperforming for $reasons.
Them: No, you’re doing great.
Me: OK…
Them: we’re not giving you a payrise! We want to give more money to someone who is objectively doing 60% of the work you do!
Me: Cool! I’ll keep performing at a high level then shall I? #jobhunting