
Performance Reviews Are a Waste of Time - ozanonay
https://blog.bradfieldcs.com/performance-reviews-are-a-waste-of-time-87c88d7553b4
======
adrianmonk
Paraphrasing what a manager told me once: "If anything in your performance
review is a surprise, then I have failed as a manager."

Coaching is not a purpose of a performance review. The coaching and
communication should be an ongoing process that happens before the review.
Problems should be brought up early enough that you have a chance to change or
improve before it gets to the point of being written in a review. If this
doesn't happen, it's a sign that the manager is either terrible at
communication, not even trying to coach and improve their employees, or even
sabotaging you on purpose.

Instead, the purpose of performance reviews is documentation. It can be for
good or for bad, depending on the person's performance. It makes info
available to others and preserves it in case you transfer departments, your
manager leaves, etc. Like any other documentation, it creates overhead, but
you have to weigh that against the value it provides, and IMHO that's what
should determine whether you do it (and how often).

~~~
lskadf93idk
We have performance reviews not annually, but every few years.

My last review, the head of our division got really angry with me and gave me
a very negative, punitive review.

What I am infuriated about is that never in that few years did I receive any
negative feedback, and I tried to do exactly what our subdivision had decided
as a group to do, and what the immediate superior had wanted. My last review
was glowing, perfect. So I go from a perfect review to being treated like a
failure, fireable, with no negative feedback in the interim.

Imagine if you in your area had discussed things, come to consensus decisions,
you were willing to do everything asked of you, and then four years later
someone higher up singles you out and yells at you for not doing what you're
supposed to etc. As if you've been getting feedback that whole time.

The worst part of this is that I know someone in our area is close friends
with this division head and basically complains about everyone except one
person in our area.

So now I have this negative review, as if I were just being lazy, even
impaired in my duties, and not doing my part when the whole time I just
thought I was doing what we were supposed to.

It's depressing as hell to me, and also angering.

~~~
danek
That really sucks. But also what's the point of even having reviews it if it's
going to be years in between them? There doesn't seem to be any upside, but
lots of downside

~~~
mdip
> what's the point of even having reviews if it's going to be years in between
> them?

Unfortunately, I would bet the point is to do exactly the kinds of things that
"really sucks" which this individual encountered. I'd hazard a guess that the
multi-year review situation isn't consistent, either. It probably is decided
"it's review time" when management has decided things aren't going well, so
they use the reviews to crap all over staff. I wouldn't be surprised if this
review cycle comes immediately before a round of layoffs/redundancies, as
well.

~~~
r00fus
That sounds like Seagull Management

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_manager](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_manager)

------
rrggrr
I was a young employee during a recession, and finding work was difficult.
When I landed my first job I was I was grateful and focused on ways I might
make my work contribute to the company's bottom line, by pushing the limits of
my job description and tasks to ensure my role impacted revenue and value
creation. I appreciated training and feedback, but forced myself to deliver
results autonomously through self-teaching and long hours. Perhaps it was
because I grew up as the son of a small business owner, or because I worked
throughout high school and college, I was closely attuned to the businesses
needs and I delivered results that met or exceeded expectations. How do I
know? Because as I look back on what is now a long career I can't recall ever
having a performance review, a counseling session, or retraining. I only
remember anticipating needs and delivering results.

Today I have my own company and I try to hire the same type of person. It is a
profile increasingly hard to find. Someone who "needs" a review is typically
not a good fit for my management style, and someone who can anticipate the
needs of my business I try very hard to retain.

~~~
exelius
No offense, but this is the kind of thinking that leads to workplace bias.
Working styles like this tend to reinforce hiring single, young men who are
otherwise unencumbered so they _can_ work long hours and push the envelope of
the job description. That leads to a lot of group think, and products that are
built for a very small subset of users — so there is real business value in
diversity.

Reviews are important for someone with whom you don’t share a lot of built in
cultural cues. Your experience with this working style has been positive,
because you were born and raised speaking the jargon. If they come from a
different background, they may not actually know what is important for the
company because they haven’t spent their whole life interpreting these
cultural cues.

This is what we call a “blind spot” — you have had success with your working
style, and start to assume it’s the only effective way to do the work. I
promise you it is not, and as a manager you should be doing more to
communicate needs/value opportunities to your direct reports. Your view of
what those are may be different from theirs.

~~~
coloroftheskye
What? you are saying only young single men are willing to work hard and
actually function autonomously? That is so offensive I can't fathom you
actually believe that.

~~~
wongarsu
He never said “only“. For his argument to be true it's enough that the
features are more prevalent among young single men, and me didn't say more
than that.

The work ethic in question involves “long hours and self learning“ self
learning implies that it probably also happens outside work hours. People who
are in a relationship are obviously less likely to work long hours and self
learn in their free time.

Statistically, young people are also far more willing to do long hours.

I'm a bit torn on bringing gender into it. Women are more likely to work half
time, but I would expect them to be better at predicting needs (yes, I'm aware
that's potentially sexist).

So basically I find everything very reasonable if you assume he didn't mean
the worst possible interpretation. I don't see the gender bias, but I'm sure
there are arguments I'm not aware of.

~~~
exelius
*she

But gender is only a part of it; unconscious bias is intersectional just like
identity. The fewer intersectional traits you share with someone, the greater
the cultural gap you have to cover.

More formality at work in terms of expectations and progress provides a clear
way to cover that gap.

------
lacker
What's the alternative, exactly? You still need some way to tell people
whether they are promoted or how big a bonus they get and why it happened that
way. Whether you call that communication a "performance review" or not seems
like an irrelevant detail.

~~~
jedberg
> You still need some way to tell people whether they are promoted or how big
> a bonus they get and why it happened that way.

If you've been giving them actionable feedback throughout the year, then it
should be as simple as "here is your new salary and your new title" and no one
should be surprised about anything.

~~~
chris_va
When that works, it works well. When that fails (e.g. people disagree as to
how they performed relative to their peers), it fails badly. Performance
reviews (if done well) lower the risk of system breakdown.

(Not to defend performance reviews explicitly--there may be a much better
approach that accomplishes the same goal)

~~~
bcrescimanno
That's not necessarily true. When managers are doing a good job of regularly
communicating with an employee and having critical conversations in regular
1:1s, nothing in a performance review should come as a surprise. If you've
ever been surprised in a performance review, your manager failed in their
responsibility--and you probably also failed yourself in that you didn't push
for regular conversations.

Sure, those disagreements still happen. But, when things are transparent,
there's very little risk of a "system breakdown" and a very high chance that a
dissatisfied employee (who doesn't seem to be performing well in our scenario)
will leave to make room for someone with more potential.

Edit: I just noticed the GP was jedberg; we both spent enough time at Netflix
to see what each of us is describing work well in practice. :)

------
jillesvangurp
Performance reviews are a form of legal ass coverage for companies. Their
purpose is to re-enforce the notion that there are rules and that everybody is
treated equally and have a paper trail to back that up. This paper trail may
be used for defending choices for promoting certain people and not promoting,
or worse firing, certain other people. They are a formality if nothing is
wrong but in case something is wrong, it can be key in e.g. lawsuits or other
forms of conflicts. Of course the sad reality is still that e.g. women get
treated unfairly in a lot of places and that your mamager's bias or their
relation with their peers play no small part in how you get treated. It's far
from perfect as a system.

The bigger the company the more likely it is to have very elaborate ass
coverage when it comes to these things. So, keep in mind that it might be less
about you and more about them when you are having that conversation. They are
required to have that conversation with you. It's not optional; it's a box
that must be ticked.

However, performance reviews are not necessarily a bad thing and I've had some
great managers give me great advice. I would just add that a good manager
would not wait until the review if things aren't going great and some of the
best managers I worked with made a point out of doing regular one on ones.
Coaching happens outside of performance reviews. Performance reviews are also
your opportunity to speak up. I once pointed out that I had nothing but good
reviews but no recent raise. It went up the chain, they checked their records,
and I got my raise. It was a modest one but it felt important to me. These
things work both ways.

------
jmartrican
I disagree with this dudes blog. I love my reviews. I seek criticism so that I
can improve and like the positive feedback because it helps motivate. But
maybe I am an outlier. And as a person who has to give reviews, I want to tell
people where they need to work on and praise their strengths.

I tend to work with people from East Coast finance world, and they not too
keen on the touchy feely story telling stuff. Its sort of expected that you
have to have thick skin and get to the point.

~~~
organsnyder
My concern (which I think is at least partially shared by this blogger) is the
rigidness of formal annual reviews. A formal review should contain no
surprises—if a formal review is the first time you've heard a certain piece of
feedback (especially negative), then your management is shirking one of their
primary responsibilities. Given an environment where feedback is frequent and
useful, the formal annual review becomes a tool that only satisfies the larger
enterprise machine—it's of little value to the manager or the employee.

~~~
nilkn
When feedback is continuous and healthy throughout the year, I think the
review itself acts just as an amplifier. It lets you really praise someone
officially in a big way for good work. If someone has been seriously
troublesome, it should never be the first time that has come up, but it lets
you magnify how important it is that their performance issues get resolved. In
that sense, it can serve a dual role as a sort of PIP. The review is also an
opportunity for the manager to sift through all that continuous feedback over
the entire past year and condense the important stuff down into some easy-to-
understand big picture ideas.

Reviews can also be an opportunity for the direct report to get career plans
in writing from their boss. For instance, if you want a promotion to X, the
result of the review may be a written plan by your boss on how you can achieve
that promotion.

------
ordinaryperson
Defending performance reviews is like cheerleading taxes -- automatic way to
accrue downvotes here, but bear with me.

I've lived through unfair, biased and unhelpful perf reviews, I know what it's
like to have this sky beam open up out of nowhere and vaporize you over absurd
nonsense, but in a company of > 100 people you need a paper record of
performance.

If you're a VP and suddenly someone asks, "Hey, can you promote or fire Person
X?" What are you to go off of? Just a manager's recommendation? And you think
perf reviews are biased?

Unfair performance reviews are usually a byproduct of bad managers. For ex: I
knew fellow managers who never told reports what they were doing wrong, they'd
wait til the end-of-the-year review and write vicious stuff. Why? It was hard
to say face-to-face.

That's cowardly and not good mgt: you meet weekly or biweekly to discuss all
issues, a well-run perf review is a boring rubber stamp on the 25 things
you've been discussing all year.

This author suggests that employees present managers "handwritten notes" of
their performance "in a notebook every 6-12 months." Guess what-- that's a
performance review! As if the problem w/perf reviews was the formality of the
process and not the human judgment being applied.

Again, I get it: performance reviews suck. But I think it's not the paperwork
or the process, it's that management can be very inept at evaluating talent
periodically, regardless of how that process is run.

Unfortunately, it's hard to run a company of > 100 people without written
records of performance (especially if someone sues).

~~~
markbnj
> If you're a VP and suddenly someone asks, "Hey, can you promote or fire
> Person X?" What are you to go off of? Just a manager's recommendation? And
> you think perf reviews are biased?

This is why I don't work for large orgs anymore. If you can't trust the
manager's recommendation then why is that person a manager, in a position of
power over people's lives? It's almost like acknowledging that you're too big
to know whether your people can be trusted or not, so you need formalized
checks and balances. I get that this in fact may be reality, and I also get
that we need big companies to create many of these cool things modernity has
given us, but man I have no desire at all to be part of such a thing.

~~~
elipsey
> If you're a VP and suddenly someone asks, "Hey, can you promote or fire
> Person X?"

Why would anyone suggest such a thing?

Absent new information shouldn't the default action be to humanely leave
person X alone so they can keep doing work and paying their bills without
costing the company more?

I must be very naive in the ways of management...

EDIT: This is a real question; what's with the down votes? Should I expect to
be treated like this at work?

~~~
Harvey-Specter
You seriously don't understand that sometimes people are promoted for being
good at their job, and sometimes people are fired for being bad at their job?

~~~
elipsey
I understand either of those, but not the case where an exec picks out some
employee they don't know anything about and insists that they be either fired
or promoted right just now.

~~~
majormajor
You misread.

You're being asked to imagine yourself as the executive - _you 're the person
with firing authority._

A manager who works for you asks you to fire someone on their team. There are
a hundred people on various teams in your group, you don't have first-hand
knowledge of all of their performance. You want to have a system in place for
making sure this is a fair request, vs "we argued a few times the last week"
or, in the really bad sorts of cases, something like "we had an affair and it
ended badly and I'm trying to clean up the mess by firing them."

~~~
elipsey
Thank you, I think I see what you mean: a manager recommends an employee for
promotion OR a manager recommends an employee for firing. My reading of the
question might sound ridiculous, but I have been in situations like that in
the past.

I once had a contract-to-hire job in which the contract supposedly stipulated
that I was guaranteed a full-time permanent position if I passed the six-month
performance review, otherwise I would be terminated. They told new hires this
to convince them that it wasn't really a temp job. They kept me a temp for ten
months, and then laid off all 120 of us.

I would love to believe that management is categorically reasonable,
comprehensible, and truthful, but that’s not my experience.

~~~
abraae
There is no "management". There's just people, in positions or more or less
power over others.

At some companies, these people are well selected, trained, and caring
individuals who understand who to build and nurture teams.

At others, these people are dicks who have got into their position via Peter
Principle. being frat buddies with CEO etc. who view workers as resources to
be squeezed and discarded.

And everywhere in between.

Sounds like you got unlucky at that place.

------
daveslash
I've been working professionally for over a decade, and it never occurred to
me that performance reviews were meant to provide career advice. I thought
they were meant to help you understand if your are meeting the expectations
for your current capacity. For example, as an engineer at company X, is my
development-time vs customer-support-time supposed to be 50/50, 80/20, 20/80,
etc.. and how well am I aligning with those specific expectations. I consider
this separate from "career advice".

~~~
typomatic
In fact, they're mostly meant as a way for HR to have a paper trail to fire
people. That's the only real reason for them to exist, and any good that
managers do with them is incidental.

~~~
chatmasta
Such a paper trail can be useful in more situations than just firing someone.
For example, consider the values of performance reviews in aggregate.

I can think of many reasons why upper management may want to analyze
_aggregate trends_ of performance reviews throughout the company, broken down
by team, department, manager etc. They can use those trends as data-driven
feedback on policy and personnel changes. That is, they can answer questions
like “how has our re-org affected overall performance YTD?” Or, “has changing
our interviewing methods resulted in higher quality performance reviews of
newer employee cohorts?”

~~~
abraae
You can also use the information to optimise your workforce.

Lets say you're a big home improvement chain opening a new store. You need to
get 150 workers to staff the new store.

Do you want to hire 250 people cold and hand the new store off to them? No.

You want to take the top 100 performers from nearby stores, who are busting
for a chance to prove themselves, and pepper pot them into the new store, in
positions of team leadership, seniors, etc. (And then do a bunch of hiring for
the remaining 150, and the 100 to replace the ones you just transferred).

These are the sorts of win-win efficiencies you can pull off if you have good
performance data for employees.

(Also astonishingly rare to see in action in the real world, but that's
another story :)

------
dfxm12
I always understood the performance review, at least in large corporations
(not small companies or startups), not just to judge you individually, but
more importantly _to judge you against your peers_.

In the context of judging us against our peers, it is isn't for us (so of
course it's a waste of time for us), or our direct managers, but for upper
management. The value there depends on the quality and candidness of feedback.
Can this information be totally gleaned from task or ticket tracking systems?
I don't think that tells the whole picture.

OK, so is it necessary for upper management to have this data? In a perfect
world, this feedback data finds employees with great potential, ASAP and
tracks their growth over time, from manager to manager and team to team, but
since I'm a lowly professional and not upper management, I have no insight
into how this is actually used.

~~~
iamcasen
This is so inhuman though, it seems obvious why it is a shitty process. How do
you acquire data points about a person? Sure it's easy if their job is to
produce MAX WIDGETS/HR, but what if they are a designer, or a software
engineer?

The only way to judge someone is to work with them closely for months/years.
Translating that into data points to hand off to a series of managers will
never ever work. Especially if it is for higher managers who actually don't
know you, and have never worked for you. How can they be the judge of your
abilities?

~~~
dfxm12
They rely on the word on their direct reports, who presumably have had
training in how to judge their direct reports. Of course, the people filling
out these reviews are also judged on their performance as well.

 _The only way to judge someone is to work with them closely for months
/years._

I disagree here. At some point, you're going to have to delegate and give up
in micromanaging this process. There's no way Satya Nadella has worked with
each Microsoft VP for years or fills openings just with his intuition.

If mostly every manager Python Pat worked for said they were head and
shoulders above their peers and has an executive position in their future,
then are you going to just ignore their feedback? Career advancement certainly
shouldn't be a matter of being lucky enough to have enough face time with the
people who make hiring decisions... I guess at the core of this process is
trust, trust that the folks filing the review paperwork are doing so
correctly, but if you can't trust your managers, you're problems are larger
than a review process.

~~~
iamcasen
Sure, once you're at the VP level your reputation probably precedes you. If
you're young in your career though, with little work history, your manager
won't be able to gauge shit unless they see the work you produce. Even then,
you won't produce good work unless your placed somewhere that matches your
strengths. Your manager can't know your strengths/weaknesses without actually
spending time with you.

So at that level, it's exactly like I say it it is: a boss just decides if
they like their report or not. They go with their biased gut feeling that's
probably based more on superficial characteristics like clothes, hair, or the
way a person talks. From there the person will either be thrown the sharks, or
given a lot of support and opportunities.

I'm sure not all organizations are like that, but most that have 5000
employees or more have been exactly like that from my experience.

------
ravitation
I'll just say this...

In _a lot_ of instances annual review (or any long cycle review) serve a very
important bureaucratic purpose for employees: getting raises (and/or
promotions). Nearly everything else in a performance review should be handled
in some other way, but it's hard to push management into the position to
reward an employee financially outside of such a formal setting. This comes
with the disclaimer that if your company sees value in performance reviews
(and therefore chooses to have them) than it probably also is the type of
company where getting a raise outside of a formal setting is hard.

------
srhngpr
At my current employer, we completely reinvented our performance management
[1] and it has worked out to be so much better. We spend less time on coming
up with arbitrary goals and really focus on strengths and developmental needs.
The overhead involved with spending a lot of unproductive hours on performance
has been minimized. The conversations are really about what people have
contributed, what their strengths are, and how the firm can support their
development goals. Also, by using our new performance management system, the
conversations around promotions and such are much more streamlined and data-
centric. Overall, the expectations of both sides are better managed.

[1] [https://hbr.org/2015/04/reinventing-performance-
management](https://hbr.org/2015/04/reinventing-performance-management)

~~~
runevault
Thanks for linking this, it was a really interesting read. Sent it to my boss
for him to look at.

------
djsumdog
> Yet, I’ve worked on and with many teams filled with growth-mindset people,
> and universally the response to HR-driven reviews has been a collective
> groan. People on the team find it awkward, uncomfortable, and a distraction
> from their work.

What? A performance review is never something I've dreaded. They're just a
regular, mundane, thing that happens. They tell you 'good job' give you your
raise, which is sometimes just cost of living, sometimes it's $3 to $5k, and
then you go back to your desk and go back to work.

It just feels like it's a standard in place to make sure people get income
bumps every years. I don't think it's as big a deal as the author is claiming.

~~~
outworlder
If you are at a relatively health company/group, they are just a chore (like
setting 'goals', which noone really looks at until the next review is
approaching). As you say, you just go back to your desk and forget about it.

I have had 'performance reviews' where the manager would just make up
outrageous claims that were simply not true. So they can be a dreadful
experience.

------
koolba
Performance reviews are important as they provide a means for companies to
document negatives about workers they eventually want to get rid of. It's like
the secret police building a dossier that they could pull out at any time to
use against you: " _Well according to our files you 've been 'underperforming'
for the past four reviews. In light of that we'll be letting you go._"

If you want constructive feedback to build your career you need to find a
personal mentor, build a relationship, and regularly check in to both provide
updates and solicit feedback.

~~~
iamcasen
"Performance reviews are important as they provide a means for companies to
document negatives about workers they eventually want to get rid of"

That's true, and it's horrible. That's why the whole thing is a joke. You can
be a GREAT employee, but managers can just ding you on this or that simply
because they want to or don't like you, and then you get fired as a result.
It's ridiculous to wrap that up in the lie that it is a meritocracy.

------
tootie
I sorta agree. A lot of place do these very wrongly. I think goal-setting is a
waste of time because project work usually sucks up all your bandwidth no
matter what. Anonymous peer feedback can be very helpful. Really, you and your
manager (or reports) should know what's going on pretty constantly and never
been surprised by a year-end review. I think the formal processes are less
about getting new information and more about giving HR a paper trail for
handling complaints.

~~~
slededit
I you don't make time for your long term goals your career is going to stall.
If project work is really taking all your time then you need to push back.

~~~
tootie
Yeah, but if you have a personal goal of something like "implement some
machine learning" and a year goes by where there's no applicable use case for
machine learning, then you're SOL. It can be worthwhile to mention this as a
personal goal, but if you make it a goal post for career advancement, you're
likely to fail.

~~~
slededit
If your goal is to make a move away from your team then you won't get a lot of
help I agree. Usually there are mutually beneficial goals to you and your
boss. Those are the sorts of things you can expect help with.

------
spicymaki
I agree with the assessment, but do not feel that the proposed solution will
fix it. Performance reviews have a lot of management overhead and are done
poorly in many companies. Many managers do not want to give honest feedback,
because it takes time and employees may not be able to handle it. Committee
based employee ranking leads to infighting, sabotaging, and low morale.

Perhaps we need to just accept that the compensation systems will never be
fair, and managers will just promote and pay the people they like and fire or
keep stagnant the employees they don't like.

~~~
piyh
The biggest reasons for performance reviews in my mind are to serve as a
mechanism for everyone to get a cost of living/merit raise at the same time
and to leave a paper trail for when you need to fire someone. Having 2 years
of "below expectations" will save a corporation's ass when an unlawful
termination case pops up.

------
jedberg
Performance reviews should be always on-going. A good manager will be
constantly giving you feedback on the things that would happen in a
performance review.

I liked the idea of the self review, and doing that once or twice a year, as a
good stepping off point for a discussion on career pathing, but in general, no
one should ever be surprised by anything that would come up in that
discussion, otherwise you haven't been a good manager.

It's up to the manager to make sure the feedback discussion happens often, and
not wait for the employee to ask or wait for a formal review period.

------
ocdtrekkie
I have yet to find a self-evaluation form that doesn't make me cringe and wait
until the last possible minute to fill it out. I've said, entirely seriously,
I would strongly consider waiving salary increases to avoid this process.

My boss generally has a pretty good idea how my work is going, the position
I'm in means no word is good word anyways. A lot of times its hard to figure
out how to answer a question in a way that doesn't read pointless or express
my utter disdain for performance reviews.

------
caymanjim
I agree that, in most cases, performance reviews are a waste of time, or at
least represent a process smell. Regular, frequent feedback is more valuable
and effective. It's ok to summarize that quarterly or something, but as others
have mentioned, if anything in a performance review is a surprise, management
has failed.

Having said that, there are situations where performance reviews are a more
pragmatic option. As a consultant, I interact daily with my client management,
but I can go weeks without any meaningful interaction with my consulting
company management. We do check in regularly, and as-needed outside the
regular sessions, but my consulting management doesn't take part in my day-to-
day work. In order to adequately assess my performance, they need to solicit
feedback from client peers and client management. This is a burdensome process
that is more practical to perform on a three or six month cycle.

None of this precludes feedback and assessment more frequently, however
without the day-to-day observation, some schedule and formality help. I
suspect there are many other situations in which people do not work directly
with their management.

------
notacoward
This seems to be a screed against a _particular type_ of performance review.
As far as it goes I agree with it, but in a larger sense I disagree. Yes,
giving peer feedback is hard. Nonetheless it's necessary. Let's be adults and
do things that are hard. Peer feedback itself can be continuous or periodic,
but even if it's periodic it all needs to be collected and compared at some
point ... which brings me to the next point.

Besides purposes related to either helping employees grow or covering the
company's backside if they need to fire someone, reviews serve another
important purpose: they're a way to factor out biases in the award of raises,
promotions, and equity. If you don't have performance reviews, these things
are _guaranteed_ to be a matter of the managers' subjectivity and bias. If you
do have performance reviews, they can be compared to one another both within
and across teams to ensure that the results don't favor anyone on the basis of
anything except measured merit. That's absolutely essential in any workplace
that we could consider modern.

------
koliber
This post speaks to me as I've spent the last 6+ years working on making
performance reviews better. There are many things wrong with performance
reviews. For me, the worst thing is that usually they are done only once a
year.

We tend to remember most recent things and assign them greater value. This
means that if a below-average colleague did something phenomenal a month
before the review, they will receive a more favorable review. Along the same
vein, if a well-performing colleague slips up right before review time, this
will unfairly penalize her. Annual performance reviews are bad because they
are done 50 weeks too late.

We've been trying to address this at the current company I am working with. At
15Five we are building tools for continuous employee feedback and performance
assessment.

There should be multiple communication processes going on all at once, with
different cadence, that all add up to one's perception of an employee's
performance.

We have weekly check ins, which are meant to be answered in less than 15
minutes and reviewed in less than five (hence the name!). People set goals one
week and rate them the next. This has a biweekly cadence. Longer terms
objectives and key results can be tracked as well, usually on a monthly or
quarterly. All this feeds into a performance review, which ideally should
happen quarterly, but can be done less often. The difference is that you don't
spend a week before the performance review is due trying to remember how each
of your team members did. You have that right in front of you, as you've spent
the last X months interacting with them, having conversations, and earmarking
notable feedback and conversations.

Our customers are happy with this process as an alternative to annual
performance reviews.

~~~
outworlder
If you go to far to the other direction, you'll also create stress. People's
output will vary depending on many factors. So now you'll have peopple
worrying about microfluctuations in their output.

------
bretthellman
Thanks for calling this out... In my career, I've seen some reviews be a
complete waste of time and others provide value. It depends on the company and
how seriously your manager takes the process.

During my time at Yahoo the process was an absolute joke as leadership was
changing on the daily. When I was a PM at Intuit, I received feedback which I
still leverage years after the fact.

People shouldn't feel like performance reviews are the only way to receive
feedback. Feedback needs to happen regularly, not on an annual basis. Feedback
should also come from people you respect, not the people your boss tells you
to listen to at work.

Coincidentally, this is an area I have a lot of passion for given I was a
HORRIBLE boss at my last company (acquired by Atlassian):
[https://medium.com/matter-app/you-
matter-d7a0b07d078b](https://medium.com/matter-app/you-matter-d7a0b07d078b)

I'm also working to fix this problem, if anyone's interested in chatting on
the topic or interested in fixing the problem... brett@matterapp.com

------
retrac98
I’ve always found my performance reviews to be very useful, and people’s
feedback extremely insightful.

I think they can be brilliant, and they can be awful. It depends on the
approach of the manager and their subordinate.

~~~
organsnyder
I rarely receive useful, actionable advice during the formal annual review.
Critical feedback, especially, is lacking (the past two years, I've gotten
"exceeds expectations" with no identified areas for improvement— _really!?_ ).
The best feedback has come from colleagues, in the moment.

------
mbfg
I agree performance reviews are a waste of time, but thinking you improve
things with self evaluations is even more laughable.

Here's what i take away from a company saying i need to do a self evaluation.

1) The company is not going to take my evaluation of myself for any adjustment
in position or salary.

2) Therefore it is their attempt to make me be a better employee without any
regard to any responsibilities on their side. Sure i'm all for trying to be a
better employee, but this is disingenuous.

3) If my boss could accurately evaluate me, i wouldn't need to evaluate
myself.

4) The fact that the company requires me to self evaluate, tells me that they
suspect that my boss may not be able to do so. Why, i assume it's either
because they believe that either my boss doesn't really know what i do, or
won't evaluate me fairly for personal or other non business important reasons.

5) If the company is concerned about their management in this regard, and yet
continue to have them in those positions without much followup, they don't
think very highly of my retention.

Luckily, i have come to realize that even though this is exactly how I feel
when asked to be involved in this process, it's likely not the real reason.

One has to remember that HR personnel also want to improve and grow their
careers, which entails being able to articulate value propositions to the
company as well. How do they do this. Keeping the status quo doesn't get you
promoted. Introducing new evaluation processes, including self evaluations,
360 degree evaluations, and other new cutting edge HR policies will.

So likely this onerous new process you are involved in that makes you feel
slimy, is just because the HR group needs to justify their positions... which
of course should say what you need to know about how you are valued.

------
bcrescimanno
> Avoid the temptation to synthesize and anonymize feedback that really should
> be given directly.

Yes, yes, YES!

When I solicit feedback for people on my team, I always remind everyone that
anonymous feedback is the worst. Honest, direct feedback is incredibly
valuable.

Feedback should be the catalyst for a conversation; not a one time statement
to be interpreted or ignored.

~~~
greedo
That works great in a non-dysfunctional team. In many teams, communication is
so toxic that anonymous feedback is the only way to express grievances. I've
had team meetings where my manager scolded us for 90 minutes because he
received a poor rating in an anonymous review from his subordinates. He was
surprised that no one had expressed disatisfaction; yet he never encouraged
open, honest, reprisal-free communication.

------
wpietri
Good stuff, although I think the "what do I want to be when I grow up"
question is needlessly infantilizing. Much better is something like, "what am
I trying to accomplish?"

For peer feedback, I strongly recommend a trick I stole from my last boss:
manager interviews of the employee's peers. You ask the employee for some
people who they've worked closely with, mix add in others you think would give
good perspective, and then do a short (30-60 mins), structured interview with
open-ended questions and follow-up on patterns.

With that material in hand, a manager can write up a peer feedback digest that
I think is way more useful than what normally comes out of the process.

------
mattmanser
One of my friends hated when they cancelled performance reviews at his
company.

Some people like getting told what they're doing right and wrong.

~~~
no_one_ever
It is so frustrating to ask a manager "what could I be doing better or
differently?" and they respond with "nothing...".

------
scarface74
I don't really care either way about performance reviews. I've found the
difference between average and superior amounts to no more than 2% raise if
that.

I base my own "performance review" on my skillset and what the market is
paying. If the market is willing to pay me more than the company I'm working
for - it's time to jump ship.

But I don't ignore performance reviews. I take them as constructive criticism.
Even if they are "unfair", I assess what I could have done differently either
technically or politically not to be in that position.

~~~
w0mbat
At some companies the difference in stock and bonus is a fuck ton of money. At
Netflix the difference is also between being fired or not. Seriously, a
Netflix HR person gave a public speech saying that they fire people for only
average performance.

~~~
scarface74
In the grand scheme of things. A minuscule number of developers work at a
company where stock and bonuses are that big of a deal. In fact, when
recruiters mention "bonuses" as part of compensation, I mostly ignore it. I've
seen "bonuses" dangled in front of employees too often as an excuse for not
giving raises and motivating people to put in 60+ hour work weeks.

------
crsv
I feel like articles sometimes elicit a certain "no shit" reaction, but then
don't really dig in to solutions.

Specifically around the mechanism of the performance review, this piece is
pretty practical for framing thinking about an alternative approach:
[https://medium.com/the-carrot-or-the-stick/the-
performance-r...](https://medium.com/the-carrot-or-the-stick/the-performance-
review-is-dying-heres-how-to-build-its-successor-e4787ea90b46)

------
weliketocode
I see this largely as an issue of politics vs performance.

Managers, acting politically, will blame failures on subordinates or push out
top performers who could prove a threat to their own job security.

Formalized performance reviews feed many problems by increasing the amount of
politics: \- Managers looking to increase headcount might avoid giving
feedback to average or below performers. \- Stack ranking makes it difficult
to recognize multiple good performers and forces you to recognize average
performers

------
pasbesoin
I mostly found them to be a political tool.

In that role, they can work very well. (My role being one of observation, not
use of / manipulation.) Of course, they aren't really even trying to
objectively measure and improve performance.

I mean, they work well for furthering the politics and furthering the
ambitions of those in control of the review process.

I didn't find this very productive, in terms of the organizational performance
nor, long-term, well-being. Existing powers become entrenched, and turf
becomes more important than progress.

Eventually, "outsiders" are brought in, one way or another, to break this up.
And most of them know very well and make a career of putting themselves first.

The review process tends to be or become separated from day-to-day work and
communication. It exists "out-of-band", and it can end up -- including
deliberately -- uninformed by and mis-informed about that actual day-to-day
and project results.

I.e. It's very easy to manipulate. And there are always people more than
willing to take advantage of this.

------
johnkchow
I'm the Engineering Manager for the Reviews team at Reflektive (performance
management SAAS), and I have to say that this article rings true with me
personally and aligns with our company's mission. The recent trend when it
comes to performance management is that companies a) no longer want the
feedback process to be centrally driven and b) feedback between managers and
direct reports should be given on a more frequent cadence. The latter point is
especially challenging, because no software out there can magically can change
an individual's behavior; the company culture[1] has to exist first to foster
it.

Every company is different, but for some traditional companies Reflektive
works with them to initially roll out Performance Reviews because companies
have dedicated budget for it. Then, once they're comfortable with our tools,
our Customer Success team partners with them to craft a roll-out plan for our
"Check Ins" product, which is a lightweight feedback tool intended on used
every 3 months. For Check Ins, it's meant to be __purely __about development;
at Reflektive, our Check Ins contain no performance rating scores nor do we
use it for compensation (we have a separate process for that).

The good news is that a LOT of companies, ranging from small startups to large
50k-employee enterprise companies, actually want to shift towards a more
employee-driven model. Our team's number one priority right now is to empower
employees/managers to own their own feedback process and to increase the
frequency of feedback between managers and their teams. I'm super excited
about what's coming down the pipeline!

[1][https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1df5MALZKZU6lOeIXUiO-...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1df5MALZKZU6lOeIXUiO-h6ReFM3KuIpnapSE97IZnX4/edit#slide=id.g2cf5bbf228_0_280)

------
zdragnar
"What is the best career advice you’ve ever received? Odds are it wasn’t from
an annual performance review."

I guess the odds were in my favor.

~~~
tarr11
Agree - lots of opinion and generalizations here, but painfully short on any
kind of supporting evidence.

------
staunch
You can talk to your managers about how you're doing any time you want. Almost
any manager will give you feedback if you ask for it. But you won't know what
they _really_ think until you see your raise/bonus allocation.

A simple rule for employees: If your raise/bonus is bad, then they want you to
quit. If it's good, then they want you to stay.

------
gwbas1c
I've found performance reviews are good for understanding upwards perception
and expectations when a manager doesn't communicate well.

In my experience, I've found that they've lead to an, "oh, I better get out of
this place ASAP," or, "oh, there's a problem with my manager that I better
raise ASAP with his boss."

------
MBCook
When I went from a small company to a much much larger one I was amazed at the
amount of time that was wasted on the performance review cycle every year.

They spend SO MUCH time on it, for a thing that is mostly irrelevant to how
things seem to operate. It’s not like drastic changes are being made to
peoples’ salaries or hours off it. Or job titles.

~~~
stealthmodeclan
Imagine if company fired someone. They can sue the company. And what if there
is no evidence of degrading performance against this employee?

~~~
iamcasen
It's pretty unrealistic, as you can be fired for any reason, at least in most
states in the USA. It's called at will employment, and all a manager has to do
is say "You know, things just aren't working out, good bye!"

~~~
stealthmodeclan
So employees don't sue for unfair firing?

~~~
MBCook
They do, but unless you can prove you were fired for one of the reasons that
is explicitly illegal you’ll lose. And of course that can be hard to prove
even if true.

------
erikb
Well they have a purpose: they give the manager the illusion of credibility
and power, and the developer they give the illusion that there would be a
chance for a raise if he would be just a little better. And let's be honest.
We love to be rated and climbing the virtual ladder of getting more points.
That's human nature. So in some regards it also gives everybody involved the
illusion of meaning.

That is more purpose than most of your work has, if you really look at it from
a bird perspective.

> A performance review is supposed to be a tool for learning and career
> development.

This is the misunderstnading. If a politician says he's going to lower taxes,
we laugh about it. But when a CEO says he wants to do performance reviews
because he cares about how good his worker bees are we believe it? He mostly
cares about his bonus and having people clap at his brilliant presentations.

------
theodorewiles
Performance reviews are for the ORGANIZATION, not the EMPLOYEE. Informal
feedback is for the employee. #managertools

------
didibus
I think I wish most performance reviews were:

Here's why you are not being promoted this year...

Here's what you need to do to be promoted next year...

Here's why you only got X increase in salary...

Here's what you can do to get a bigger increase next year...

If you are satisfied at your current level, here's what you should keep doing
to stay in it...

~~~
iamcasen
The problem with those points is that they are lies. And you will have to
stick with the company for at least two years before you figure out they are
lies, and that even if you do what they say you will not be promoted, because
promotions are for people who are well liked, not for good performers.

~~~
didibus
I see them more as ammunition. If they say here's why you didn't get promoted,
and I disagree, that's my signal to look for another job.

If they say here's what you need to do, and I do it, and don't get promoted
next year. I can say, based on last year's and this year's review, I expected
to be promoted. If they try to con their way, that's again my queue to leave.

So in a way, yes, it might be lies, but it forces them out in a very
transparent and no nonsense way. Which I'd prefer.

------
JustSomeNobody
Most performance reviews are annual and managers wait until the last minute to
do them. Problem is, you can't remember everything that happened throughout
the year.

Keep a file on each one of your direct reports. In it, keep notes about their
accomplishments, failures, etc. Also, note how they reacted to those. Note any
feedback from peers.

Give constant feedback throughout the year.

Be fair in your assessment.

Formulate a succession plan. This includes things like who will take your
place when you get promoted as well as who will take the place of your team
lead when they move away.

Finally, and this is _the_ most important takeaway, there should _never_ be
any surprises in a performance review. EVER. The person being reviewed should
go in knowing what they'll receive based on the constant feedback.

This is all management 101 stuff.

------
Shank
The problem with direct peer feedback is that, when collected imprecisely, it
can disproportionately affect the overall review structure. I've worked at a
company where the review structure let employees pick who were going to give
input on their reviews. This meant that, depending on how you selected your
reviewers, you could just stack the system.

It doesn't seem like a good system if the person being reviewed can just
select friends for reviews. Conversely, if you only sample a select group, you
can surface grudges. An employee with a grudge can be "honest" in their
feedback and completely turn a review.

It's just subjective all the way down. You could have managers "interpret" the
results and compile them, but that leaves their own biases.

------
andrei_says_
If we look at performance reviews as a means to justify not giving a raise, I
think they do provide, and pay for themselves.

Corporate structure usually has a ceiling for raises in the department, so
there needs to be a paper trail on how that gets divided.

------
paulie_a
Ongoing coaching is more productive. If you are a manager you are coaching
your team even if you don't realize it. Embracing that is important and
approaching employees differently is important.

------
daveheq
"What have I done for the company lately?"

If a manager or the company isn't aware of this then they're not paying
attention; you shouldn't have to do their job for them.

"What have I done for myself?"

What? Who cares? That's my business.

"What do I want to be when I grow up? (And what do I need to get there?)"

I'm already grown up, do you think you hired children? If of course you meant
what do I want to be by next review, well the easy answer is more adept and
better paid, hopefully with your help.

------
emerged
I made the mistake of giving an honest review for my teammates once. They
apparently were given the results one way or another and have hated me ever
since. Never again.

~~~
iamcasen
The only way this works is if EVERYONE is accountable, including the CEO
herself. It's called radical transparency, and it's the best for everyone
involved. Secrecy creates all kinds of issues because people aren't working
with accurate information.

People need to hear when they are fucking up because if they don't hear it,
they will never improve. That must be followed with a positive company culture
that recognizes that rising tides life all ships. You can't have transparency
in a company that is toxic, and encourages blaming and backstabbing. Instead,
when someone fucks up, we should recognize their humanity and offer a helping
hand. If they consistently fuck up, and are unwilling to receive help, then
let them go. But don't make people live in constant fear of being fired for
the slightest thing. We should feel empowered to push out of our comfort zone
and try risky things.

------
guest2143
Having a strategy of having the person tell their story, and the manager
having their story is a good combination. like described here:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/774088.Difficult_Convers...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/774088.Difficult_Conversations)

It's the conversation together about what the next chapter could be and should
be that can be really valuable.

------
ams6110
Like most HR processes, performance reviews are at least as much a CYA
activity to guard against claims of discriminatory management practices as
they are about actually coaching or improving performance.

If there is a performance problem with somebody who happens to be a minority,
documented performance reviews that are handled the same for all employees are
necessary to show that the employee was not promoted or dismissed or
disciplined due to bias.

------
jjxw
At least part of the high cost can be explained by HR departments wanting to
hedge their bets in case someone needs to be fired for cause. Having a well
documented paper trail of reviews which demonstrates that an employee was
unfit or underperforming is the surest way to avoid a lawsuit if it comes to
that. Whether or not it is worth a couple of hours of every employees' time
every year is up for debate.

------
tqi
To use the author's own rubric:

Q: What is the goal? What are the problems or opportunities it is addressing?
A: Be as "fair" as possible in determining raises and promotions, attempting
to control for different roles / projects / levels / external factors.

Q: What is the cost? A: 2-4 weeks of company time each year.

Q: Is the process achieving that goal, for an acceptable cost? A: Yes... how
else would you accomplish this goal?

------
yawz
I think there are much better ways to handle reviews/salary increases/bonuses
than annual or semi-annual meetings. I recently wrote about it:
[https://medium.com/@yagiz/to-bonus-or-not-to-
bonus-5d825d958...](https://medium.com/@yagiz/to-bonus-or-not-to-
bonus-5d825d9589e7)

------
mathattack
As an employee I ask for quarterly feedback independent of the formal cycle. I
get disappointed if it’s just “you’re doing great” because I like to show
improvement by saying “You told me to improve at X so I did Y.”

On the flip side, I find very few of my reports want to hear negative
feedback. It takes a while to build the trust to enable it.

------
scotty79
Performance review is wonderful cost reducing tool. When employee wonders why
he doesn't earn more it can postpone the process by "ask me after performance
review" and when it finally comes it can sometimes trick him that "it's not
us, it's you" is a valid answer to that question.

~~~
polymerase
This is shortsighted because the employee may already be sitting on an
offer/is willing to leave. If a good employee asks management for a raise
outside of the annual performance review cadence, and is rejected with "Ask me
after performance review", management shouldn't be surprised to receive the
employee's 2 week notice.

~~~
scotty79
The point is, people are usually not proactive about money. Usually they don't
ask for more money if there's a schedule for possibly getting more.

In industry where employees are expensive and they switch jobs roughly every
two years anyways it makes total sense. You get to keep employee for another
six months for same salary on he may think that it's what he deserves.

Key employees who ask for more, get more. Non-key emploees get "wait for it"
because nobody cares if they leave. And some key employees don't ask.

I agree that exploiting your employees it's short sighted but for most
businesses short sighted works good enough.

------
bretthellman
To paraphrase from Google...

A "Shadow Belief" is an assumption we make without even knowing it's an
assumption.

Thinking you can only hear peer feedback from your boss or during an annual
formal review is a shadow belief.

You don't need your boss or some stupid process! Ask the people who work with
who you respect and do it often.

------
sebslomski
Great advise, also highly relevant on the same/ similar matter:
[https://hackernoon.com/12-manager-readmes-from-silicon-
valle...](https://hackernoon.com/12-manager-readmes-from-silicon-valleys-top-
tech-companies-26588a660afe)

------
mdip
I generally agree with most of the points that the author is making here,
however, I have some counterpoints to offer as well.

The major issues with performance reviews almost always come down to poor
execution. The whole "Performance Reviews Suck" mirrors the whole "Agile
Sucks" in that in principal it _can_ be good, but in practice, it rarely is.
Most of it falls on how a manager handles a review, but part of it falls on
how an employee receives feedback, as well.

So on to my counterpoints: At the one place and under the one manager, Lou, in
my job history where performance reviews worked really well I managed to
receive among the worst performance review I have ever received. The _score_ ,
as it stood, was fine -- I was a top performer at the company and it was hard
to argue with the results -- I scored "exceeds" in every category. The
criticism, however, was rough -- it was honest, direct and after reading it, I
couldn't disagree with any of it very well. I had a _great_ manager who both
understood where I excelled and recognized areas where I could grow. He
started out the review with "Before you freak out . . . " and went on to
explain that the scores and the comments are not going to feel like they're
not in full agreement[0]. He explained that the yearly review[1] is about
growth, and growth requires feedback, that he didn't need to tell me how well
I was doing because we both knew how well I was doing and that his goal is to
specifically find areas where I can improve and put a plan together on how he
was going to help me get there[2]. A bit of my feedback involved written
communication to business managers, "identifying what's important" and
throwing the rest out. My comment history will shine the light on the fact
that I'm long-winded -- I type fast like the rest of you and I read very fast,
so neither receiving or sending a long message is a burden. He did several
screen sharing sessions with me to hone my communications, he gave me several
books (some from his personal collection) to help me to round out my
engineering skills, encouraged me to look at languages and technologies that
had different programming paradigms than I was used to. It resulted in me
studying a lot of areas that had little to do with my job as a primarily
Microsoft-centric developer, but all of it resulted in me becoming a much
better developer.

In the right hands, a performance review can be very powerful. It provided a
formal time slot to sit down and talk specifically about ways to improve at
what I loved doing. A lot of folks would think, "Well, your manager should be
doing that, anyway" \-- sure -- and in a couple of decades of having a career
in engineering, the _only_ time this has happened was under a formal review
with all of two of the 15 or so people that I have worked for. For whatever
reason, people are unwilling to offer criticism like this outside of that
setting, and most of them are unwilling to offer it _within_ that setting for
a high-performing employee. And why should they? The high-performers aren't
the ones they have to spend time on! And honestly, I would have been more
_comfortable_ had he not shared these negative aspects of my performance with
me -- they weren't a "big deal", they weren't affecting the great ratings --
leave well enough alone! But the fact that he _did_ bring these things to my
attention made me better at what I love doing. I didn't get higher ratings at
the next review (though I received feedback about how well I handled the
feedback from the last review), and I received far fewer negatives in the
process.

Since having that manager, I have told every _other_ manager I report to that
"I'm comfortable with receiving criticism" and that I value that kind of
feedback, a lot. It hasn't made a terribly large amount of difference in the
kind of reviews I've received, unfortunately, but my hope is that by putting
that out there, I disarm a manager who is afraid of losing a top-performer as
a result of negative feedback.

I've never had to give a review (as a manager; I've done a ton of peer
reviews), but the advice I'd offer is: (1) Everyone has something they want to
do better and _can_ do better -- call it out. Maybe they don't even realize
it's a problem. I didn't! (2) Don't just _point it out_ , commit to working
with the employee on the area they received feedback on. (3) Disarm the
employee, particularly if their score is high as they'll not expect to see
negative feedback. Start with compliments and move into areas of improvement;
be as self-deprecating as possible[3]. (4) Actually _do_ the things you set
out to do to help your employee. (5) Limit the happy stuff, don't sugar coat
the bad stuff[4].

That last point might seem off, and it is -- this only works if you had a boss
like the one I had -- he was a great communicator and regularly provided
feedback on the positive side. So when he started off the review with "You
know how valued you are and how well you do your job", it wasn't placating or
dismissive -- I legitimately knew by the flexibility I was given and the
constant feedback I received. He was a master at criticising the act rather
than the individual, as well, which is something I'd love to be better at.

[0] The comments started off explaining all of the areas that I excel in, but
were terse and similarly direct.

[1] This manager also did quarterly less-but-still-somewhat-formal reviews, as
well, which I valued.

[2] This was a key point, to me. It was a recognition that part of his job was
to make me better and that he wasn't sending me off with negative feedback and
expecting me to figure it out -- he was generating work for himself, as well.
Honestly, I felt pretty miserable about this particular review for about a
month, but during that month, he followed up almost every day on one of the
points we discussed and spent several hours providing advice and directly
working with me to improve on the areas that he felt I needed help with. I
realized that it would have been a lot easier for him to say "atta-boy" and be
done with it.

[3] My boss explained that he had the same problem "focusing messages" \--
he'd spent an hour with his manager at a prior job agonizing over words in
sentences trying to reduce content to a bit over a few tweets without diluting
the message. I don't know if that was entirely true (except that this boss was
also, easily, the most ethical person I've ever reported to).

[4] As in, don't minimize the negatives, brush them off, or try to find ways
that the negative is a positive -- it's placating and dishonest about the
intent.

------
songzme
Our team doesn't do performance reviews. We publicly praise good qualities in
people and reward them for doing wonderful things. Having a culture of
appreciation inspires people to become the best person they can be at a pace
they are comfortable with.

------
magice
Hmm. Yet another day, yet another bashing of performance review. Very sad.

I will readily agree that most common systems unnecessarily bundle multiple
high stake issues. For example, most people (me included from time to time)
stop listening past "you get a raise of x%" in an annual review.

However, 1 wrong thing (i.e. unnecessary bundling") doesn't invalidate whole
whole process.

For example, most performance processes involve goal-setting (I don't know
about you, but I find that very _very_ appealing), performance evaluation
against goals, soft skill review (i.e. how much do you stress out your
teammates?), and plan of action for the next year. Have I received career
changing advices through performance review? You bet I have. For example, I
pick software engineering because of distribution of my grades (performance
review at K12 level!). For another example, don't make stupid & potentially
misunderstood jokes.

Sure, continuous & informal feedbacks are important. However, so are formal
processes, including feedback and evaluation. Have I improved? How the hell
would I know if I don't have things noted down? Should I be promoted? How the
hell would another person know if there is no papertrail of evidence of
excellence? What am I good at? What role should I play in this team? How
should I grow? All of these questions require careful contemplation over
behaviors and performance in a long period (a year or at least a few months).
Maybe all of you Bill Gates are so smart that you don't need them. But I am
mere mortal, and I love feedback.

So, for the love of craftmanship, dedicate time and resources to performance
review. It will only matter WHEN YOU MAKE IT MATTER. That's the thing. You can
drive the best car the in the world badly if you hate driving. Similarly, if
you think that you are so smart that no system can properly evaluate you,
well, the system will fail. To be more precise, you fail the system.

------
halayli
I think a survey might be more useful. It's rare that anything mentioned in
the review would take a person by surprise. But reviews can serve as a
reminder to what an employee should focus on to align with the business needs.

------
marssaxman
I've believed this to be true for a long time. The institution of a formal
review process has been a good signal for me that a company has grown too
much, and it is probably time to start looking for the next startup.

------
Shivetya
wait till you work somewhere they add in items you have no influence over like
meeting sales goals or such while working in IT. Then on a scale of 1-5 with 5
being best and 2 being under performing they score you a 2 in both categories.
then again a subsidiary of ours had a four year stint with a bad cio who set
all reviews as a 2 baseline and required managers to justify higher.

When reviews are once or at most twice a year they don't provide guidance a
manager should be providing full time. All they are a means for a company to
protect themselves from recrimination.

------
Zenst
When the performance of the employee is not capped and the remunerations are,
then such reviews for some will feel like a futile bureaucracy.

That's not the case in all companies, but for many rings true.

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Invictus0
I don't disagree with the title, but I also didn't see enough evidence in the
article that the performance review is a waste of time.

------
laythea
So glad I am now a contractor :)

------
murphyslaw
Performance reviews exist only to create a paper trail for HR in case of law
suits.

------
wjossey
Full Disclosure: I'm the co-founder of a company focused on feedback /
performance reviews. I care deeply about the process of delivering feedback,
and would love to hear your thoughts. My email is in my profile.

I've read through most of the comments posted thus far, and I'm far from
surprised with the varying sentiment. We run into this at Eager Labs, where we
facilitate 360s, performance assessments, and more, for companies. Because we
actually embed ourselves within the organizations, I get an opportunity to see
how different company cultures trigger different reactions to the process of
delivering feedback.

A few things we've observed from our work so far that might be interesting to
those following this thread:

[1] For many employees, sitting down with their manager and having a
conversation around performance is the thing they value the most. This often
occurs because the manager doesn't regularly do this as a part of a 1:1
cadence. Having a formalized time where the company "mandates" this
conversation can be a useful forcing function when some managers are less
willing / apt to have these conversations on their own.

[2] Getting peers to provide _actionable_ feedback is a real challenge. We've
invested a lot of time in crafting our process (both in software, and in a
workshop we run) to guide people towards providing less feedback along the
lines of "Great job, keep it up", and towards S.B.I.A feedback, (Situation -
Behavior - Impact - Action). Even if you have something positive to say to
someone, give a concrete example of a situation where they exhibited a
positive behavior, how that impacted you, and any actions you want them to
take going forward. For example, "When you speak up in meetings and share your
opinions, it helps me to feel more empowered to share my own thoughts. I'd
love to see you speak up more frequently, if not for your own benefit, than
for mine!"

[3] Giving regular feedback is great, but make sure you avoid giving 'drive by
feedback'. Knowing the right moment to deliver praise or critiques is a skill,
and a lot of peers / managers don't know when the right moment is to deliver
feedback. For example, as an engineer, one of the most challenging times to
personally receive critical feedback is right after a really hard push to
deliver some massive new feature or product. The feedback may be totally
valid, but knowing WHEN to provide that feedback can be the difference between
it being motivating and just discouraging. So, while I totally agree that
"feedback should be a regular part of any peer, manager, or mentee
relationship", finding the appropriate times to deliver said feedback matters
just as much as the feedback itself.

[4] There is no one size fits all solution for performance reviews or
feedback. Whether it's what questions to ask, how to deliver the feedback, or
what the cadence should be of delivering that feedback... Every team,
department, and organization has unique wrinkles that make them special. We
end up spending a lot of time customizing our assessments down at the team
level for this very reason, because we find that what makes a sales
organization tick is wildly different than an engineering department, and
while there may be cultural overlap because of company values, they each have
their own needs. This is why it can often be challenging for an HR / People
Ops department to craft a process that works for the entire company, which may
result in a lot of people having a sour experience.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to share their thoughts so far on
this thread. It's been a real pleasure to read.

~~~
ben509
> [2] Getting peers to provide actionable feedback is a real challenge.

I sympathize, as I recall going four rounds trying to deliver useful peer
feedback to a very patient manager.

I think the block for me was that SBIA is oriented towards an immediate
business case, but my thinking was oriented towards improving their
performance.

Neither perspective is wrong, though obviously the business case was needed to
promote. It highlights a problem with the doctrine behind feedback /
performance reviews that views them as discrete units rather than a holistic
approach.

I think we really want one continuum of recruiting / professional development
/ promotion / transition. The day you're interviewed, the company should be
asking, "what direction do you want to go in?" and those answers should be the
first entry in your file.

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ebbv
This is total clickbait. He says performance reviews are terrible so instead..
write a performance review.

Seriously, what performance reviews in 2018 don't involve a self appraisal?
Pretty much everything he recommends has been part of the performance review
process at my company for the last 8 years. And I'm not saying our process
couldn't be improved, but this article offers no real insights of any kind.

------
pwaai
HN: X is a waste of time.

Real World: X depends on your livelihood.

~~~
cgdub
Did you mean "Your livelihood depends on X"?

~~~
pwaai
Yes.

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gaius
True story: in my first real job first review my manager said “if I took a
poll of your coworkers, you’d be sacked”. I was stunned, I thought I was doing
good work and was well liked.

18 months I’m a team leader myself and they sent me on the course for doing
reviews. And there they taught me the first thing you should always say is “if
I took a poll...”

The whole system is toxic

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megaman22
I tend to only remember it's around time for the yearlyish performance review
if I'm starting to get the itch again that my experience and expertise aren't
getting market-rates of return. It's sort of code for, "Hey, can I get a raise
before I get irritable and start looking for something else?"

Maybe that wouldn't work everywhere, but it's tripled my starting salary.

