I work in academia. Our performance review process is mostly a make-work scheme for HR. There are some forms for goal setting and reviewing how your goals/progr

I work in academia. Our performance review process is mostly a make-work scheme for HR. There are some forms for goal setting and reviewing how your goals/progress fit with organization goals (which are vague enough to be useless). In theory, HR reviews these forms, but that's doubtful because they don't have manpower or operational understanding to do it. It changes every couple years, but the outcome is basically a rating of below/meets/exceeds expectations. No one is ever fired, and no one is ever promoted based on these reviews (IT staff don't even have a career ladder to climb). The rating will determine if your annual raise is CPI or CPI +- 1% so it doesn't really affect salary either. The occasional market review which can bump you from lowest decile of market to lowest quartile of market dwarfs the effects of the review ratings. So it's basically pointless and most managers don't pretend otherwise.