

Do you do individual performance reviews in your startup? - justinchen

In large companies it's pretty standard procedure to do performance reviews.  At HP we did 360 degree evaluations where your peers gave feedback to your boss who delivered the news to you.<p>What do startups and small businesses typically do for performance reviews?  When there's only 3 people or so anonymous feedback isn't really anonymous, but it seems like a good process to have to keep people growing individually.  How are others handling this?
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cschneid
I'm also interested in how small companies handle performance reviews. I've
worked for 2 small companies, and find that they can be more opaque than a
large company, since the boss is often pulled in a dozen directions, and
performance feedback can be rare.

Is there a good way for small companies to do this? This exact issue came up
in my head today as a "startup" idea to investigate. Do other companies feel
this pain?

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justinchen
The other thing with small companies is that the hierarchy is much flatter and
people tend to be closer so there's the worry of spoiling the working
relationship.

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cschneid
I understand what you're saying there, but I feel that small companies are
worse at setting performance goals and reviews than large companies, simply
due to the fact that the "boss" is pulled in so many directions. Can a
software tool make that easier or more transparent?

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neilc
We did periodic performance reviews at the startup I worked for (which had
about 15 employees at the time). It wasn't anonymous: I wrote up a document
that evaluated my own performance and how I felt about the working
environment, and my boss and I went over it together. I found it quite useful,
and it was a good opportunity to step back from the daily routine, discuss
plans for my future within the company, and set goals for the next year. One
thing that I felt was important was that my boss really took the time to think
about the work I'd done, and gave me some legitimately useful suggestions for
improvement (the feedback wasn't just "Work harder.", for example).

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YuriNiyazov
One thing I can say is that in my previous startup we did not do co-founder
performance reviews, and it hurt us immensely. I haven't been able to figure
out how to do appropriately critical or praiseful performance reviews, but I
think that it is tremendously important.

