
Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews - grellas
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB127093422486175363.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLESixthNews
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rpledge
The 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?

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pw0ncakes
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.

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j_baker
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.

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pw0ncakes
Enron is an energy company that decided it wanted to be a Wall Street firm-- a
trader rather than a maker. The problem is that it didn't have the cultural
"memory" that most banks have-- that prevents them from doing outrageously
stupid and illegal things (that people in the banks would also love to do if
they were profitable, but history has shown to be bad ideas). So Enron became
an outlandish caricature of Wall Street.

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yanilkr
It 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.

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pierrefar
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.

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skybrian
The're terrible even at the bottom. The problem with 360 reviews is that
writing reviews of your co-workers is excruciating, and the more inclined you
are to be critical, the worse it is. It's essentially impossible to be honest
without making people you have to work with every day unhappy, so I spend most
of the time trying to think up nice things to say while not being completely
dishonest. (And therefore I distrust the nice things they say about me.) I
can't think of anything less likely to promote honest communication.

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Tycho
As much as I _hate_ performance reviews, from my limited experience with them,
I'm not sure they are bad for business. I mean if you're doing a tedious job
there's an obvious conflict of interest: you, the worker, want to relax to
make the work more bearable; they, the employers, want as much work to be done
as possible, no matter how boring it is. What's the point of pretending
otherwise?

Now, I quit my last job partly because of this. I'd say on one hand its their
loss because a) i contributed lots of helpful ideas/processes, b) if nobody
ever sticks around they wont have long-term, 'expert'/veteran staff, who are
very important. However, perhaps good ideas always tend to come in with new
employees, and perhaps a high turnover of staff ensures they only need to pay
the entry-level wage, while they also want to minimize future reliance on
veteran staff. I can't call it myself.

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kennon
I'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.

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mmt
_This is because I was under the impression that a formal review is the only
way for me to get a raise._

This seems rather directly mistaken. If you feel you deserve a raise,
communicate this directly, rather than artificially putting a formality in the
way.

 _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_

I think it's pretty safe to say this is a false dichotomy. A formal review
could tell you all sorts of things, none of them having anything to do with
money. Absent some kind of clause in an employment contract, they don't _have
to_ do anything.

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kennon
Interesting, thanks for the advice. I guess I was basing my assumptions on the
experiences friends have had at larger firms, where all the salary changes
were relegated to yearly reviews.

This is my first time working at a company with more than 40 people, so it's
all been a learning process. Glad I asked about raises here-- otherwise, I
probably would've waited till my first year was up, only to be disappointed!

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wlievens
At my previous job, I had a yearly performance review. It was that time of the
year where my boss told me that he's glad to have me around, but that I should
try to keep the procastrination under control. I really liked that. A serious,
but amicable conversation, valuable in spite of the red tape.

I like a somewhat formal statement on whether people think I'm doing a
good/bad job. It's also ammo when you're asking for a raise.

It's certainly not suitable to the startup model, but that's not what this
article is about.

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andrewcooke
actually, i don't (hate them). normally i have done ok, so it's a chance to
say so and ask for a rise.

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wlievens
Exactly. I haven't had any at my current job and I dislike that... a
performance review is the ideal time to ask for a raise.

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Dellort
Well if you don't like it you can always quit. Nobody likes whiners. Be a
winner instead.

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philk
Criticizing bad ideas isn't whining, and if there was ever an idea in need of
criticism it's the conventional performance review process.

