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The biggest problem I've seen with performance reviews is that most managers spend very little time working with or observing their employees. Couple that with

The biggest problem I've seen with performance reviews is that most managers spend very little time working with or observing their employees. Couple that with performance review processes that don't actually measure results and it's a wonder anybody knows anything. I was once a manager at a medium-sized consulting company. I had an employee we'll call "Roy." He was always involved in the critical parts of large, profitable projects. He generally got 3.5 to 4 out of 5 in his peer reviews. There was another guy, "Jim." Jim was mostly on smaller, simpler systems and maintenance work. He generally got similar scores in his peer reviews. For their first performance review, I gave Roy a 4.2 and Jim a 3.8. Roy got a 7% raise and Jim got a 5% raise. Later on, I was the lead dev on a project with Roy and Jim as my team. Once the project got rolling, getting Roy to actually produce code was like pulling teeth. I talked to the other leads and found out that Roy talked a good game in front of clients but required a baby-sitter to actually get anything done. He was always on the critical components not because he was a great developer, but because the lead or architect was already paying extra attention to the critical components and could more easily manage the babysitting. Jim, of course, got all his work done on time with minimal fuss and even stayed late to finish some of Roy's work. I went back and looked at those peer reviews... Roy's lead dev had given him a review that averaged to 3.5. The soft skills were mostly 4's, the technical skills were mostly 3's and 4's. (He was an OK developer when you actually got him to work.) My only clue would have been a 2 in "Works Independently." Jim didn't have other devs on his projects so he had Project Managers giving him 3's and 4's for soft skills and 4's for technical skills. A poorly designed performance review was actually worse than no performance review.

brown9-2 16y ago
Once the project got rolling, getting Roy to actually produce code was like pulling teeth. I talked to the other leads and found out that Roy talked a good game in front of clients but required a baby-sitter to actually get anything done. He was always on the critical components not because he was a great developer, but because the lead or architect was already paying extra attention to the critical components and could more easily manage the babysitting. And none of this came through in the peer reviews, beyond the 2 in Works Independently? I think the review system here broke down in the peer area - no one who was working with him was communicating the vital info on this one, beyond just numeric scores.
- jtbigwoo 16y ago
  I think the review system here broke down in the peer area Exactly. The review process wasn't actually measuring anything useful, it was just a list of traits that upper management thought were important. This story also reflects how clueless I was as a manager, that I was only talking to my people to gather information.
tomjen3 16y ago
>Roy talked a good game in front of clients but required a baby-sitter to actually get anything done Move him over in sales, he will properly do very well there since he knows the technical part very well but has human skills as well.
- jtbigwoo 16y ago
  Last I heard, he's a project/product manager. :)
- dwc 16y ago
  This is an awesome suggestion. Except for very small companies there's usually a place to move someone where they will excel, if management is willing to take the time to think about it for a moment. Once in a while you have someone who doesn't work out at all, but at least as often you can go for the win-win of moving them somewhere they like and perform well.
frossie 16y ago
The biggest problem I've seen with performance reviews is that most managers actually spend very little time actually working with or observing their employees. Flip side: if you are a small enough group that know each other very well, performance reviews can be a good opportunity to raise awkward subjects. It's a tool - it can be used or misused.
mwsfc 16y ago
Another problem is when you really do have self-serving mgmt that would actually rank as a 1 or 2 themselves but use performance reviews as a method to throw other perfectly capable people in their org under the bus to cover their failures.

brown9-2 16y ago

Once the project got rolling, getting Roy to actually produce code was like pulling teeth. I talked to the other leads and found out that Roy talked a good game in front of clients but required a baby-sitter to actually get anything done. He was always on the critical components not because he was a great developer, but because the lead or architect was already paying extra attention to the critical components and could more easily manage the babysitting. And none of this came through in the peer reviews, beyond the 2 in Works Independently? I think the review system here broke down in the peer area - no one who was working with him was communicating the vital info on this one, beyond just numeric scores.

jtbigwoo 16y ago
I think the review system here broke down in the peer area Exactly. The review process wasn't actually measuring anything useful, it was just a list of traits that upper management thought were important. This story also reflects how clueless I was as a manager, that I was only talking to my people to gather information.

tomjen3 16y ago

>Roy talked a good game in front of clients but required a baby-sitter to actually get anything done Move him over in sales, he will properly do very well there since he knows the technical part very well but has human skills as well.

jtbigwoo 16y ago
Last I heard, he's a project/product manager. :)
dwc 16y ago
This is an awesome suggestion. Except for very small companies there's usually a place to move someone where they will excel, if management is willing to take the time to think about it for a moment. Once in a while you have someone who doesn't work out at all, but at least as often you can go for the win-win of moving them somewhere they like and perform well.

frossie 16y ago

The biggest problem I've seen with performance reviews is that most managers actually spend very little time actually working with or observing their employees. Flip side: if you are a small enough group that know each other very well, performance reviews can be a good opportunity to raise awkward subjects. It's a tool - it can be used or misused.

mwsfc 16y ago

Another problem is when you really do have self-serving mgmt that would actually rank as a 1 or 2 themselves but use performance reviews as a method to throw other perfectly capable people in their org under the bus to cover their failures.