annual reviews = load of crap 1

[boffintech]

Annual reviews are coming up pretty soon at my company. My manager uses a form supplied by corporate. The form has a lot of categories which are graded on a scale of 1 to 4 points. Last year during the review my manager told me that he “never gives a 4”. The highest score of 4 means the person being graded exceeds the expected performance for that particular category. This guy won’t give fractions of points either so a 3 is the best one can do. There are lots of categories that I think I should be given a 5 in but I can only get a 3 out of this guy.

He claims that “no one is perfect” and thus no 4s. To this I say why try to be perfect because you won’t reward it if I hit it. We are at a standoff on this. How can I get him to see the error of his ways?

 

[MadMango]

All annual reviews I have ever received had a space reserved for my comments about the review I received, somewhere to jot a few sentences down before I signed it and my supervisor turned it in to HR. Use that space to let your concerns be known, but do not whine about the system. Be constructive.

As Rhodie pointed out, if your performance cannot be progressively measured, then the point of a review is pointless, because there is no metric to measure improvement. This mirrors my first post, if no progress or improvement in your performance is indicated; it shows that you are not growing in your career with your present employer.

[green]"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."[/green]
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[49078]

How often do you get 3's? Would other managers know your manager's policy to never get a 4? If they do, maybe they'll understand that a 3 with him is like a 4 with anyone else.

Another way you may look at this, is your boss is probably more likely to give 1's to people. If you get all three's and your associates are getting 1's than you may look better.

I would think it depends on how much info he gives his people when they go over the reviews at any point.

Good luck, and btw great thread title - sure grabbed my attention.

 

[corus]

epoisses view that 'Livingston's company's system sounds too communist to me to ever be succesful' sounds too much like american imperialist capitalism to me, if we're going to be silly.

A review by the UK Treasury Office in the early 1950s stated that performance pay would only work if managers had the omniscience of a guardian angel. Even considering the omniscience of managers it cannot be said they are angels. The idea was rejected then by the Civil Service and I believe was later rejected by the Ford company as performance pay proved to be a disincentive to staff and contributed to a decline in overall morale of the company. Even in companies which had performance pay, managers would often award everybody the same pay-rise every year rather than have half their staff being demoralised. Managers would find that performance pay, whilst improving the morale of a select few of the 'blue eyed' boys would prove to be a disincentive to the remaining staff, destroying any team spirit within the department. For those who did perform better than other staff or 'slackers' then promotion proved a better incentive whilst not undermining the team.

The theory that rewards and bonuses, by themselves, motivate employees to do their jobs better, is only a theory and is no more valid than the notion that dispensing food to a rooster every time he pecks the piano guarantees he'll soon play Beethoven.

corus

 

[waskillywabbit]

We run into this problem all the time in checking fabrication drawings...what looks great on paper and sounds good in theory is in reality a load of crap.

Brian

 

[epoisses]

corus... rather the contrary... being french I am part of socialist "old" Europe, although I may be less socialist than the average french person...
Anyway even in this french company you get more or less of a raise (or nothing at all) depending on your performance, and I like the system. We don't get categorized in numbers 1-4 but we get a personal letter from the general manager explaining very clearly why the raise is what it is. I guess he's pretty enlightened as a manager.

 

[IRstuff]

It also depends on what "performance pay" system you're talking about. Most companies have some loose form performance pay along the lines of the above, which is relatively straightforward.

There is a variant of performance pay, wherein each employee is weighted-ranked according to salary, so that performance from a lower-paid employee will get a larger increase than the same or better performance from a high-paid employee. End result is that senior engineers wind up getting zero raises while junior engineers get huge raises.

The problem also revolves on the concept of "incentive." While there may not be overt Incentive given a certain raise system, there is definitely a Disincentive with certain raise systems.

TTFN

 

[JAE]

Our firm uses a concept created by a guy named Jack Stack that ties in every employee to a line of sight and connects them into the company as business partners. Its really a cool concept - but one that is almost so basic you have to wonder why so many companies don't try it out.

Relevent to this discussion is the concept of performance reviews and the idea of linking an employee to the goals and vision of the corporation that employee serves. Stacks concepts create a better (in my view) partnership between all individuals in a company.

Here's a couple of links to some articles and sites about "The Great Game of Business":

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20040401/25stack.html

http://www.greatgame.com/

http://www.umass.edu/fambiz/great_game.htm

Its working with our firm, although we are still getting into the concepts. Worth a look.

 

[Pressed]

A large company I worked for had a matrix to corral it's employees and the first time they explained it to me was with a smirk. They knew that I was going to fit into a tiny window, no matter how I performed or what I said. This was back when I expected all raises to at least account for the increase in cost of living, yeah right.

It seemed to me that it is a tool to curb raises. The way the matrix is laid out and guided, the best outcome is already known; the only unkown is if employees performance is not good.

To be honest, this was as bad of a thing as I have experienced from management. It is a drain on motivation and makes one not trust managers.

One last thing, some bosses are good at making you think that what they are telling you is generated by them, even though it was handed to them. So that number 3 may be a compliment after all.



_______________________________________
Feeling frisky.........

http://www.tailofthedragon.com

 

[Scott03]

If your manager "never gives a 4", and you feel your potential for a better raise in salary is diminished because of that lower rating, it's time to find a new employer.

My previous employer left me at a similar crossroad. For the last two years I was there, my manager gave me several of the highest marks available. Upper management demanded that he lower some of my ratings, to justify the smaller raises they were willing to hand out. The first year it happened, I expressed my negative view of this procedure, explaining that I would rather have truthful high marks regardless of the actual raise in salary. During the next year's review, my manager said that he ended up submitting my review three separate times to management. Because they were not willing to approve his high marks of my performance, he was forced to lower my ratings twice before they thought it was the "appropriate" level.

Six months later, I started working for a better company, much closer to home, with a 32% higher salary. Looking back, I'm happy that I wasn't treated fairly during the reviews or I might still be working there.

 

[MedicineEng]

Bottom line:
Nobody likes to be evaluated.

There are no perfect systems and there will be always persons that are never happy no matter what;
In the salary raises I know more or less which is the general raise expected for my department and that my boss will accept, so I don't make the easy way of giving everybody the same raise. I believe that everybody receiving the same salary raise only creates disatisfaction in everybody. As such, I don't have any problem to give a 0% raise to a below average performer and tell him this in the face.
Right now, the problem that I am facing is that I have at least one very good element that has also a very high salary (deserving every penny) and I cannot convince my boss to give him a raise due to the actual salary level. What I have been doing is compensating him in the bonus distribution, where I have much more latitude to decide.

In our evaluation from it is stated right in the beginning : "This is a dialogue between 2 ADULTS".

I also had my share of less than fair evaluation and I also didn't like it. In a previous company where I worked this system was started and in the first evaluation there was a parameter of "Availability". When my boss evaluated me, told that it was not giving me the highest mark because felt that I was not going to the compnay on Saturdays once in a while. I told that Saturdays were not working days, that I tried to make all my work during working days, that I was putting 10/11h/day and eventually some nights (unpaid of course), so I would continue to not coming on Saturdays unless something really urgent happened.
Even though I didn't receive the highest mark.
I don't know the result of it or whether the system went ahead or not.
I left some months after that.

 

[FACS]

I'd just say this:

"Yeah, it's hard to be on the winning "5" team without effective coaching......"

Charlie

http://www.facsco.com

 

[bridgebuster]

Of course they're a load of crap. I work for an engineering company owned by a manufacturing company. The same review policy is used throughout. It's designed for factory workers not engineers. But then again, the parent company is only interested in money.

In the department I work in, we submit the same write-up every year. All we change is the date.

The company requires a meeting between employee and immediate supervisor. However, we're not allowed to discuss raises, future work assignments, or anything that would require the company to spend money.

To me, the review is a CYA tactic in the event of a lawsuit by a disgruntled employee.

 

[jbelectrical]

The engineering firm I work at is the exact same way. The form is generic and looks as if it could be purchased from an office supply store. If I recall correctly, rankings are from "Unsatisfactory" to "Satisfactory" to "Above Satisfactory" to "Excellent." Nobody ever appears to receive a raitng of "Above Satisfactory" or "Excellent" and I have no idea why.

 

[Ron]

The most significant problem with such a compressed evaluation scale is that one point makes such a significant impact on the average of a few evaluation criteria. Further, if one supervisor never gives 4's and another supervisor liberally gives 4's, you can't rationally resolve the relative performance of two different employees.

I prefer a written descriptive scale, such as:

0-Does not meet requirements
1-Sometimes meets requirements
2-Meets requirements
3-Sometimes exceeds requirements
4-Routinely exceeds requirements


Then carefully and objectively define the requirements.

 

[planedr]

My experience so far is reviews are something HR comes up with to get a warm fuzzy. Most Engineering Managers could care less. Now my current Supe is adament that they represent a vital feedback tool and swears he uses them as such. He will actually distribute performance raises per your performance, if they let him.

The last one at this same company never did reviews and distibuted the budgeted raises evenly, we think. Everyone seems to get about the same percentage, not necesarily the same amount....

My last company they were a total crock every 2 to 3 years they would do them all at once. It was only done when HR noticed they were not done or when it suited their purpose.