33 ms·

What's the alternative, exactly? You still need some way to tell people whether they are promoted or how big a bonus they get and why it happened that way. Whet

by lacker 8y ago

What's the alternative, exactly? You still need some way to tell people whether they are promoted or how big a bonus they get and why it happened that way. Whether you call that communication a "performance review" or not seems like an irrelevant detail.

jedberg 8y ago
> You still need some way to tell people whether they are promoted or how big a bonus they get and why it happened that way. If you've been giving them actionable feedback throughout the year, then it should be as simple as "here is your new salary and your new title" and no one should be surprised about anything.
- chris_va 8y ago
  When that works, it works well. When that fails (e.g. people disagree as to how they performed relative to their peers), it fails badly. Performance reviews (if done well) lower the risk of system breakdown. (Not to defend performance reviews explicitly--there may be a much better approach that accomplishes the same goal)
  - bcrescimanno 8y ago
    That's not necessarily true. When managers are doing a good job of regularly communicating with an employee and having critical conversations in regular 1:1s, nothing in a performance review should come as a surprise. If you've ever been surprised in a performance review, your manager failed in their responsibility--and you probably also failed yourself in that you didn't push for regular conversations. Sure, those disagreements still happen. But, when things are transparent, there's very little risk of a "system breakdown" and a very high chance that a dissatisfied employee (who doesn't seem to be performing well in our scenario) will leave to make room for someone with more potential. Edit: I just noticed the GP was jedberg; we both spent enough time at Netflix to see what each of us is describing work well in practice. :)
  - lotyrin 8y ago
    If scheduled infrequent conversations about that can adjust those expectations, wouldn't consistent frequent conversation adjust them sooner/easier? In perfect world I'd have a mind-reading powered live dashboard I could check that shows a graph of anonymized averages of my perceived performance across broad categories (teams, peers vs subordinates vs leadership, etc.) and a single point for my direct report. Getting feedback each year when there's no surprises feels like a formality and waste of time. In the rare case that there are any surprises it's disappointing and I get to make adjustments months late, having been left in the dark.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- lacker 8y ago
  Sure. That's still a performance review. Performance reviews are usually unstressful and simple if you and your manager have had good communication for a while. That is the goal to aim for whether you call it a "performance review" or not.
- didibus 8y ago
  I love when it happens like that, but many companies have managers rotating very quickly. So you are left in the dust. Its only fair for the previous manager to formalize their thinking and position on how they felt about your performance. So that the next manager can see that and you're not ending back to square one.
- majormajor 8y ago
  Yeah, and so it's very easy a lot of times. But you still need some formal paper trail, if for no other purpose than getting that salary into the HR system. IME reviews are like icebergs: the conversation is the easy part and pretty small. But there's a lot going on behind the scenes throughout the year, and it's useful to have a process to base that off of. For instance, someone has to balance your recommendation for your employee's new salary and title against your peer's recommendation for their employee's new salary and title. And so your performance review information has to be sufficient to make that case to your management.
bretthellman 8y ago
That's the problem! Companies are using performance reviews to try to tackle two things: Compensation (bonuses, promotions) & feedback. Compensation and feedback should not be lumped into one event.
Avshalom 8y ago
As an alternative to jedberg's "you know why not trying talking to them more than once a year/quarter". A fixed pay schedule: transparent, easy to plan around, easy to know if you should stay or go if you get an offer somewhere else. If the company is giving individual bonuses they can and should be tied to tangible outcomes anyway or it's just going to be a source of even more office politicking (i mean it's inescapable either way but it's a more vs less thing).
bitL 8y ago
Most performance reviews are basically convoluted ways to say: "Do I like you?". Actual performance has miniscule effect on the rating, maybe only in a decision if one should be let go or not, but even excellent results won't save one if they aren't liked. I have seen many top performers single-handedly building branches of business being let go when they finished and somebody wanted to claim credit or push their friends once profit foundation was laid.
- weliketocode 8y ago
  Yes, being liked is hugely important. Performance reviews, in my experience, have been very heavily weighted towards politics over underlying performance.
- iamcasen 8y ago
  God this is so true it hurts. It's what I've always hated about performance reviews. It feels like an attack on my personally because it's never about my work, it's about my clothes or my face. One memorable experience was when my boss came out of no where and said "You don't seem happy here. You don't smile enough. You're now on probation until you get your act together." Not one sentence about my work as a software engineer; not one sentence about specific interactions that were problematic, or whether or not I had been reported for anything. Just vague as can be.
  - kevsim 8y ago
    Sounds like highly toxic environment. Hope you got out!
riazrizvi 8y ago
This article is a nice example of quality clickbait. Title: 'Performance Reviews Are A Waste Of Time', ooh contentious. The lede, 'formal performance reviews are a waste of time...', switched 'performance review' for 'formal performance review' while you weren't looking. Now he's set up a new context for his answer - 'a different type of performance review' (where the process starts with a self-assessment)! Lovely.
- philipodonnell 8y ago
  Bonus points if the author runs a consulting company specializing in alternative performance reviews or a SAAS startup building software to facilitate them. :-)
  - swiss_beatz 8y ago
    Sounds like interviewing.io's gimmicks tbh
  - abraae 8y ago
    We do the latter, and I am currently reading this thread to gain ideas. Please, if anyone has ideas about what a good performance management SaaS would look like - share!
    - johnkchow 8y ago
      I'm the Engineering Manager for the Reviews team at Reflektive (performance management SAAS), and I have to say that this article rings true with me personally and aligns with our company's mission. The recent trend when it comes to performance management is that companies a) no longer want the feedback process to be centrally driven and b) feedback between managers and direct reports should be given on a more frequent cadence. The latter point is especially challenging, because no software out there can magically can change an individual's behavior; the company culture[1] has to exist first to foster it. Every company is different, but for some traditional companies Reflektive works with them to initially roll out Performance Reviews because companies have dedicated budget for it. Then, once they're comfortable with our tools, our Customer Success team partners with them to craft a roll-out plan for our "Check Ins" product, which is a lightweight feedback tool intended on used every 3 months. For Check Ins, it's meant to be purely about development; at Reflektive, our Check Ins contain no performance rating scores nor do we use it for compensation (we have a separate process for that). The good news is that a LOT of companies, ranging from small startups to large 50k-employee enterprise companies, actually want to shift towards a more employee-driven model. Our team's number one priority right now is to empower employees/managers to own their own feedback process and to increase the frequency of feedback between managers and their teams. I'm super excited about what's coming down the pipeline! [1]https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1df5MALZKZU6lOeIXUiO-h6ReFM3KuIpnapSE97IZnX4/edit#slide=id.g2cf5bbf228_0_280 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1df5MALZKZU6lOeIXUiO-...
FollowSteph3 8y ago
Why do raises and bonuses have to match up with yearly performance reviews? Why not make them more immediate. Great launch everyone here’s a bonus. You went above and beyond for this release so we’d like to give you this bonus. You’ve been working very hard the last while and we think you deserve a raise. Nothing says it has to be at specific times.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Cause then the company can't push you for the entire year and waive the carrot of a bonus in front of you.

by lacker 8y ago

jedberg 8y ago

> You still need some way to tell people whether they are promoted or how big a bonus they get and why it happened that way. If you've been giving them actionable feedback throughout the year, then it should be as simple as "here is your new salary and your new title" and no one should be surprised about anything.

chris_va 8y ago
When that works, it works well. When that fails (e.g. people disagree as to how they performed relative to their peers), it fails badly. Performance reviews (if done well) lower the risk of system breakdown. (Not to defend performance reviews explicitly--there may be a much better approach that accomplishes the same goal)
- bcrescimanno 8y ago
  That's not necessarily true. When managers are doing a good job of regularly communicating with an employee and having critical conversations in regular 1:1s, nothing in a performance review should come as a surprise. If you've ever been surprised in a performance review, your manager failed in their responsibility--and you probably also failed yourself in that you didn't push for regular conversations. Sure, those disagreements still happen. But, when things are transparent, there's very little risk of a "system breakdown" and a very high chance that a dissatisfied employee (who doesn't seem to be performing well in our scenario) will leave to make room for someone with more potential. Edit: I just noticed the GP was jedberg; we both spent enough time at Netflix to see what each of us is describing work well in practice. :)
- lotyrin 8y ago
  If scheduled infrequent conversations about that can adjust those expectations, wouldn't consistent frequent conversation adjust them sooner/easier? In perfect world I'd have a mind-reading powered live dashboard I could check that shows a graph of anonymized averages of my perceived performance across broad categories (teams, peers vs subordinates vs leadership, etc.) and a single point for my direct report. Getting feedback each year when there's no surprises feels like a formality and waste of time. In the rare case that there are any surprises it's disappointing and I get to make adjustments months late, having been left in the dark.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
lacker 8y ago
Sure. That's still a performance review. Performance reviews are usually unstressful and simple if you and your manager have had good communication for a while. That is the goal to aim for whether you call it a "performance review" or not.
didibus 8y ago
I love when it happens like that, but many companies have managers rotating very quickly. So you are left in the dust. Its only fair for the previous manager to formalize their thinking and position on how they felt about your performance. So that the next manager can see that and you're not ending back to square one.
majormajor 8y ago
Yeah, and so it's very easy a lot of times. But you still need some formal paper trail, if for no other purpose than getting that salary into the HR system. IME reviews are like icebergs: the conversation is the easy part and pretty small. But there's a lot going on behind the scenes throughout the year, and it's useful to have a process to base that off of. For instance, someone has to balance your recommendation for your employee's new salary and title against your peer's recommendation for their employee's new salary and title. And so your performance review information has to be sufficient to make that case to your management.

bretthellman 8y ago

That's the problem! Companies are using performance reviews to try to tackle two things: Compensation (bonuses, promotions) & feedback. Compensation and feedback should not be lumped into one event.

Avshalom 8y ago

As an alternative to jedberg's "you know why not trying talking to them more than once a year/quarter". A fixed pay schedule: transparent, easy to plan around, easy to know if you should stay or go if you get an offer somewhere else. If the company is giving individual bonuses they can and should be tied to tangible outcomes anyway or it's just going to be a source of even more office politicking (i mean it's inescapable either way but it's a more vs less thing).

bitL 8y ago

Most performance reviews are basically convoluted ways to say: "Do I like you?". Actual performance has miniscule effect on the rating, maybe only in a decision if one should be let go or not, but even excellent results won't save one if they aren't liked. I have seen many top performers single-handedly building branches of business being let go when they finished and somebody wanted to claim credit or push their friends once profit foundation was laid.

weliketocode 8y ago
Yes, being liked is hugely important. Performance reviews, in my experience, have been very heavily weighted towards politics over underlying performance.
iamcasen 8y ago
God this is so true it hurts. It's what I've always hated about performance reviews. It feels like an attack on my personally because it's never about my work, it's about my clothes or my face. One memorable experience was when my boss came out of no where and said "You don't seem happy here. You don't smile enough. You're now on probation until you get your act together." Not one sentence about my work as a software engineer; not one sentence about specific interactions that were problematic, or whether or not I had been reported for anything. Just vague as can be.
- kevsim 8y ago
  Sounds like highly toxic environment. Hope you got out!

riazrizvi 8y ago

This article is a nice example of quality clickbait. Title: 'Performance Reviews Are A Waste Of Time', ooh contentious. The lede, 'formal performance reviews are a waste of time...', switched 'performance review' for 'formal performance review' while you weren't looking. Now he's set up a new context for his answer - 'a different type of performance review' (where the process starts with a self-assessment)! Lovely.

philipodonnell 8y ago
Bonus points if the author runs a consulting company specializing in alternative performance reviews or a SAAS startup building software to facilitate them. :-)
- swiss_beatz 8y ago
  Sounds like interviewing.io's gimmicks tbh
- abraae 8y ago
  We do the latter, and I am currently reading this thread to gain ideas. Please, if anyone has ideas about what a good performance management SaaS would look like - share!
  - johnkchow 8y ago
    I'm the Engineering Manager for the Reviews team at Reflektive (performance management SAAS), and I have to say that this article rings true with me personally and aligns with our company's mission. The recent trend when it comes to performance management is that companies a) no longer want the feedback process to be centrally driven and b) feedback between managers and direct reports should be given on a more frequent cadence. The latter point is especially challenging, because no software out there can magically can change an individual's behavior; the company culture[1] has to exist first to foster it. Every company is different, but for some traditional companies Reflektive works with them to initially roll out Performance Reviews because companies have dedicated budget for it. Then, once they're comfortable with our tools, our Customer Success team partners with them to craft a roll-out plan for our "Check Ins" product, which is a lightweight feedback tool intended on used every 3 months. For Check Ins, it's meant to be purely about development; at Reflektive, our Check Ins contain no performance rating scores nor do we use it for compensation (we have a separate process for that). The good news is that a LOT of companies, ranging from small startups to large 50k-employee enterprise companies, actually want to shift towards a more employee-driven model. Our team's number one priority right now is to empower employees/managers to own their own feedback process and to increase the frequency of feedback between managers and their teams. I'm super excited about what's coming down the pipeline! [1]https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1df5MALZKZU6lOeIXUiO-h6ReFM3KuIpnapSE97IZnX4/edit#slide=id.g2cf5bbf228_0_280 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1df5MALZKZU6lOeIXUiO-...

FollowSteph3 8y ago

Why do raises and bonuses have to match up with yearly performance reviews? Why not make them more immediate. Great launch everyone here’s a bonus. You went above and beyond for this release so we’d like to give you this bonus. You’ve been working very hard the last while and we think you deserve a raise. Nothing says it has to be at specific times.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
Cause then the company can't push you for the entire year and waive the carrot of a bonus in front of you.