

A Googler’s Critique of Google Performance Reviews - smalter
http://blog.idonethis.com/google-performance-reviews/

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Smudge
The issue I have with ranking/review systems is that, more often than not,
they become self-fulfilling prophecies.

A negative mark will change the way a manager perceives an employee. The
employee's positive contributions will suddenly be subject to greater
scrutiny, and slip-ups will serve only to reinforce the manager's confirmation
bias. Similarly, an employee's confidence and sense of self-worth can be
shattered by a negative review. It's suddenly very easy to feel like no matter
how hard you work you won't be valued by your managers and peers. All of this
leads to a negative spiral of career-choking doom. I've seen it happen to
friends and coworkers, and it's very sad to watch.

If you're going to evaluate your employees based on their relative
performance, it's critical that they have the freedom to change their
situation, without repercussion. Allow them to change teams or roles freely,
until they find a role that really amplifies their individual strengths.
(After all, you hired them for some reason, right?) I've seen companies make
the mistake preventing an employee from changing teams until they demonstrate
they can improve their performance. _Of course_ they can improve their
performance, but only if you let them move to a better role!

Instead of treating poor-performing employees like cogs that simply need to
spin faster, I wish more companies recognized how varied and diverse their
employees are, and how a productive workforce needs to be cultivated and
maintained, not bought and hired.

