Appraisal Training 2

[SomptingGuy]

I just an email from HR requesting me to attend "Appraisal Training" (new broom, new sytem, new forms). I thought it was a mistake, since I have no direct reports. When I read the text in full it said that for those who would be reviewing AND reviewed, the training would last a day; for those who would only be reviewed it would last a half day.

I wonder what I'm going to learn in that half day?? Think I may print of a BS bingo sheet and take it with me.


- Steve

 

[tickle]

To start the responses off

It could be that Appraisals will be against specific goals in a top down manner. Therefore you are going to need to fill in questionaires prior to the appraisal.

The appraisal process also involves setting the goals for comming year.

Dont know - but there will be an opportunity for you to manage up if you go.

T

 

[MintJulep]

Can you go the the full-day class?

If you understand the system - what scores points, what doesn't - then you can work the system come self-appraisal time.

 

[corus]

What you'll learn in half a day is that HR don't have much to do in the day other than lay out paper clips in a neat and orderly fashion. Otherwise they think of forms for people to fill in, which a manager is obliged to do. Then the forms are filed in round metal containers until next year. By keeping HR busy you're saving society from the menace of them hanging around street corners threatening passing strangers with synergy while cascading objectives from top down.

corus

 

[SomptingGuy]

There's more.

There was an attached TIFF file. I assumed it was some scanned-in signature that HR types insist on attaching to global emails (in an attempt to kill our mail servers). But no, it was an agenda. All I need now is to find a real engineering problem to work on during the meeting. I find it easier to ignore BS than to ignore my phone so I may get some work done.


- Steve

 

[svanels]

I wonder what I'm going to learn in that half day??

Don't know, I did not follow the training at your company, but since there is a constant fight between the parties involved in appraisals, it is good to know the rules and use them in your own benefit, else you need to bribe you boss to get that raise you (in your opinion) deserve

 

[HgTX]

I went to our appraisal training because for a while there they were imagining I was on a management track. It gave me a little more ammunition in demanding a promotion to the title that actually matched what I was doing, but that still took a couple of years.

I haven't used any of the rest of it. They taught a lot about quantifiable goals, which is fine if you're a drafter or data entry clerk, where your error rate can be measured, but I couldn't see how to apply any of that to an engineer's job, particularly mine, where I don't even have the kind of output that can be measured in pages.

They also talked about getting a lot more specific about job duties, and listing which tasks when performed would achieve which levels of rating, but I've not succeeded in getting any of that applied to my performance plan, which is still full of vague crap, and is mostly evaluated according to criteria in my boss's head, like his notion that to be rated "outstanding" in code committee participation I would need to found a whole new national code-writing organization. (I'm truly not kidding about that.)

Your mileage, naturally, will vary.

Hg

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