
Inside Uber’s new approach to employee performance reviews - malandrew
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/01/inside-ubers-new-approach-to-employee-performance-reviews/?ncid=mobilenavtrend
======
tyingq
There is some insight in the article, and things I didn't know before.

However...

 _" Hustling meant being dependable and working hard"_

Yeah, sure it did. No revisionism there.

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
Maybe it's An American Thing, but as I grew up and participated in school
sports, our coaches often told us to "hustle" \-- I don't think they intended
for us to defraud or swindle anyone, or to break any laws.

~~~
tyingq
The full phrase is "always be hustlin". That does have a certain context. Not
necessarily fraud, but certainly cutting corners, winning at any cost, etc.

See Glengarry Glen Ross for something very similar.

------
ProfessorLayton
"Since joining Uber in early June, Uber SVP of Leadership & Strategy Frances
Frei has conducted sessions with 9,000 employees, 3,000 of which are managers,
around goals and feedback."

3/~12k [1] employees are managers? That sounds really management-heavy, or did
I misinterpret that?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_\(company\))

~~~
fizx
They're probably counting e.g. SWEIII with an intern. Still, I'm more amazed
that a single person has done feedback session with 9000 people in two months
;)

~~~
dozzie
Two months are around 40 business days, which gives over 200 people per day,
or one person every two minutes. The only way this would be possible is when
he did mostly collective sessions, which heavily undermines the impressivness
of the feat.

~~~
asteli
*she

------
Steko
Wasn't one of the problems at Uber that HR was complicit in the toxic culture
and would falsely (and I can only presume illegally) tell victims that it was
the first complaint against someone they knew to be a repeat/serial harrasser?
How does the chief HR officer not get fired after that?

~~~
dllthomas
Uber's head of HR is new since the events Susan Fowler wrote about (but before
she posted it).

------
b_ttercup
Feedback is a hard problem but this sounds fluffy and unhelpful. Are there any
tools out there that have effectively been implemented in a large organization
to facilitate feedback?

~~~
tyingq
The only one I've seen work at any kind of scale is anonymous peer-to-peer
feedback where the company only sees aggregate numbers. You pick who rates
you, but you have to pick X number from your direct group, X from groups you
support, X from leaders, etc.

Doesn't help the company do anything actionable at an individual level, but
does give you a more clear idea of how others see you. Which is more likely to
feel actionable to you. Less threatening if there is real assurance that only
you see the scores too.

Of course, you still need something for leaders so they can dole out whatever
limited bonus or promotion opportunities, so it isn't a panacea.

~~~
ryandrake
> Of course, you still need something for leaders so they can dole out
> whatever limited bonus or promotion opportunities, so it isn't a panacea.

But, how do you ensure that that feedback even plays a role in one's review?
In most companies I've worked, I'm skeptical. At the end of the day, one's job
performance is judged by a human that is free to use or ignore all this
feedback. And that human is usually your direct manager, so they often already
have their own biases and self-generated feedback in their own head. "I think
this direct report of mine is performing badly, but all of their feedback is
good so I'll give him a raise" \- said no manager ever.

~~~
tyingq
Right. I pointed out it was useful for the person getting feedback, and not
useful for the boss, company to do reviews.

I have seen no process that helps make reviews better.

------
shusson
Does anyone have any positive experiences with HR performance reviews? I am
genuinely curious because in my experience they have been pointless except
from making the organisation feel good.

~~~
romanovcode
No, I've never felt they are good and/or useful. Best performance reviews are
during 1on1 conversation with CTO or whoever was directly responsible for my
work.

------
john_moscow
>Without concrete ratings in place, the promotion and raise process is going
to look different. The process for managers might also take a big longer,
Hornsey said. That’s because it won’t be as simple as giving the biggest raise
to the person at the top, and the smallest one to the person at the bottom.
Sounds like "finally you won't need any excuse to promote those who you
personally like and fire those who you don't".

