
A blueprint for performance management - craigkerstiens
https://medium.com/resources-for-humans/a-blueprint-for-performance-management-f1d449fac57d
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quantumhobbit
Aka a blueprint to turn your efficient company into a bloated office politics
obsessed enterprise.

I have never seen a company with such a structured review process not have the
review process gamed by political players. Especially peer review, that is
just asking for gaming.

Annual or semiannual reviews are way way too infrequent. Just pull up with the
employee when any problems occur. Or have weekly one on ones (props to the
article for mentioning this). Just don't what 5 months to ding an employee for
an event they no longer remember.

~~~
jeffrapp
Seen this as well. Does somebody in management really expect leadership roles
to sit down every 6 to 12 months, discuss everything their employees have
done, and do it objectively? That's a fast track to giving everybody but the
absolute worst a 5 out of 5 every time.

I'm a big proponent of the one-on-one approach, and giving feedback as needed.
I am curious, however, typically the review cycle is correlated with the raise
and bonus cycle. How would you go about handling that process with the data
points that the review cycle provides, however artificial they may be.

~~~
quantumhobbit
I would ask why is there a set cycle for raises? If an employee is valuable
enough for a raise why wait and risk a competitor poaching them before the
cycle comes around?

That may sound far fetched but my current company has a very rigid and well
known cycle and I swear that recruiters know about it. I get way more
recruiter calls leading up to raises than afterwards.

Good on you for noticing that the annual review data is artificial. I suspect
that is why these processes exist. Companies want to base there decisions on
data and don't care if that data is meaningless.

~~~
noitsnot
Some companies are so top heavy and tenured they simply don't care. Executives
run the show and they could care less who comes and goes.

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maxxxxx
One item the author should add is "Ask employees and managers one question:
Does our performance management process provide value to you? What could be
done better?".

It seems this stuff always gets cooked up by somebody who never has to go
through the process themselves.

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cbanek
One part that seems missing: Why are you trying to start a performance
management system?

Do you suddenly have too many people and are looking to promote the good ones
and get rid of the bad ones? Are people not communicating effectively? Are you
trying to figure out what people are actually doing with their time? Trying to
figure out who needs to get raises?

Different orgs at different stages have different problems. Seems like
implementing a solution without understanding the problem, and that never goes
well.

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davio
I do prefer to have formal performance reviews tied to anniversary dates
instead of a company wide performance/merit increase cycle. It's almost
impossible to give thoughtful reviews to 10-20 people at one time.

~~~
terravion
Having been a part of large organizations that do it both ways, it is very
hard to give objective feedback to large group of staff if it isn't done at
the same time. Eventually everyone that isn't a total screw-up earns the "top
box" and the performance review becomes meaningless. If everyone is done at
the same time and you want to reward your top 10%, the managers are forced to
identify who the 10% really are.

~~~
closeparen
Is your intention to churn the bottom 90% of your organization through
inflation and greener pastures elsewhere?

It does seem generally the case that if you're not a total screw-up, you
expect and can get periodic increases in compensation and responsibility. To
deny this to someone _is_ to declare them a total screw-up, because you're
signaling to them that they ought to leave for another company or field where
they won't have already peaked.

Staying in the same role and salary you had when you first entered the
workforce doesn't seem like something we can realistically expect from 90% of
software engineers.

So I'm not sure it's terribly broken just because most people are getting
promote-able ratings.

~~~
dllthomas
You can want to reward your top 10% _while_ giving at least a market-rate
adjustment to the next 80% (or whatever).

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gue5t
(Employee performance, not software performance.)

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wyldfire
Ratings are discussed in this article. But not specifically pro/con are
rankings, sometimes controversial. What's HN's take on rankings?

To clarify: I mean ranking employees within or among certain teams. In
companies that produce rankings, I think the rankings often supersede the
ratings when used as input to raises/bonuses/etc.

~~~
nhoe8743tnhoe0
My opinion is that they are the worst idea ever created. They incentivize
infighting and undercutting each other. They lead to situations where everyone
on your team is a top-notch performer but you have to cut someone, so you fire
someone who's doing a great job. Or the reverse, everyone on your team is a
complete fuck-up, but you have to give bonuses to the top 10% or whatever, so
you reward people who are doing a terrible job. Nobody I know who has been
involved with them (including the managers who have to do cutting and bonus-
giving) thinks they're a good idea.

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0xffff2
Missing from this article: Any hint as to wtf "performance management" is.

