4 ms·

I respectfully disagree here. Having worked in the industry for many years (now at a startup) the review process was deeply flawed. Because it happened once a y

I respectfully disagree here. Having worked in the industry for many years (now at a startup) the review process was deeply flawed. Because it happened once a year and your bonus was tied to it people always erred on the side of providing 100% positive and thus superficial feedback. There wasn't a mechanism to know where you really stood and how you could get better. I'm not saying this is the solution in itself but the current low touch twice a year process which is minimally invasive is a disaster in my opinion. I think this solution has merit as it takes a page out of Ryan Dalio's Principles which is to shorten the feedback loop as quickly and as much as possible. What I think would be interesting is to see behaviorial benchmarks for employees that are auto tracked. I sat next to kids that always printed 5+ extra color copies of 100 page presentations just in case. That could cost the desk 20k over the course of the year. banks have no way of knowing if employees are going out of their way to be efficient, save costs, or be productive other than subjective year end measures. bottom line is as someone in the industry I think this is a positive step forward and wanted to throw that in the mix for consideration.

AcerbicZero 9y ago
I can respect your experience, and in fact it mirrors mine, in that any review process invented by HR inevitably becomes a broken, gamed system, with limited value. Where it seems we disagree is on the solution. I don't think adding an even more burdensome artificial review system will fix what is still the same review process, just sped up. They've missed the entire human aspect of how immediate feedback is used/interperted, i.e. how a manager can correct a poor attitude or a deficiency without turning it into an everlasting stigma. As much as HR would like to pretend otherwise, good management is a skill and requires some basic human interaction talent to do correctly. This will be another failed HR initiative within a year or two, at best. At worst, it'll turn into an episode of Black Mirror. -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive
- user5994461 9y ago
  The solution is to game the system to advance your career. That's how it always worked.
  - venture_lol 9y ago
    Successful "gaming" and "advancing your career" means you have figured out how to work the organization to achieve objectives...that means you know when you are a go-getter, a driver, a supporter, a smoother, a leader :)
    - AstralStorm 9y ago
      Yes sure, if they actually put in real useful targets in there. But typically they don't. (Even if they on paper might look the part.)
davidlee1435 9y ago
I think what's important for Goldman is the quality of feedback that is given. Feedback is so contextual and subjective that there are a lot of variables that could make it difficult to extract the signal from the noise, and increasing the frequency of this would make this worse.
ellius 9y ago
Here's an idea: ongoing bonuses. Money talks. Give managers a pool of money to reward performers as they accomplish things. You can have secondary or committee review for awards, but cut out the endless string of scoring systems and other bullshit.

AcerbicZero 9y ago

I can respect your experience, and in fact it mirrors mine, in that any review process invented by HR inevitably becomes a broken, gamed system, with limited value. Where it seems we disagree is on the solution. I don't think adding an even more burdensome artificial review system will fix what is still the same review process, just sped up. They've missed the entire human aspect of how immediate feedback is used/interperted, i.e. how a manager can correct a poor attitude or a deficiency without turning it into an everlasting stigma. As much as HR would like to pretend otherwise, good management is a skill and requires some basic human interaction talent to do correctly. This will be another failed HR initiative within a year or two, at best. At worst, it'll turn into an episode of Black Mirror. -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive

user5994461 9y ago
The solution is to game the system to advance your career. That's how it always worked.
- venture_lol 9y ago
  Successful "gaming" and "advancing your career" means you have figured out how to work the organization to achieve objectives...that means you know when you are a go-getter, a driver, a supporter, a smoother, a leader :)
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    Yes sure, if they actually put in real useful targets in there. But typically they don't. (Even if they on paper might look the part.)

davidlee1435 9y ago

I think what's important for Goldman is the quality of feedback that is given. Feedback is so contextual and subjective that there are a lot of variables that could make it difficult to extract the signal from the noise, and increasing the frequency of this would make this worse.

ellius 9y ago

Here's an idea: ongoing bonuses. Money talks. Give managers a pool of money to reward performers as they accomplish things. You can have secondary or committee review for awards, but cut out the endless string of scoring systems and other bullshit.