6 ms·

That sounds pretty depressing. I do not think I would ever want to work at Amazon, or at a place like Amazon. The whole performance review thing feels like a

That sounds pretty depressing. I do not think I would ever want to work at Amazon, or at a place like Amazon. The whole performance review thing feels like a proxy for something else I can't quite put my finger on, but feels creepy nonetheless. And it strikes me as a particularly American preoccupation, although I don't know if this is the case.

ctvo 5y ago
> The whole performance review thing feels like a proxy for something else I can't quite put my finger on, but feels creepy nonetheless. Stack ranking is one thing, but you're against performance reviews? How do you know if you're doing well or poorly in your job? Or does it not matter because firing is so difficult?
- allochthon 5y ago
  Stack ranking is not my cup of tea at all. But, yes, I'm kind of leaning against performance reviews as well. It's an open question in my mind. I appreciate that big companies might have a challenge on their hands, and I don't have a lot of answers, here. But in my experience, performance reviews have not added anything obviously positive to the workplace, and they're invariably a source of friction. Which seems willfully obtuse when a company has an attrition problem. And I say this as someone who is not considered a low performer.
- noblepayne 5y ago
  > but you're against performance reviews? It may be useful to further refine what we mean when we are talking about "performance reviews". Are we talking about regular discussions between Managers (or skip-level, or product stakeholders) and their reports, or are we talking about an HR-driven process that happens every x months? Personally (for whatever that's worth) I find the former helpful and the latter to be mostly a waste of time. > How do you know if you're doing well or poorly in your job? Just my 2¢, but I think most folks would acknowledge that it is easy to have a myopic view, and outside feedback is valuable. But, at the same time, I would expect most (non-junior) engineers (who have been at a company long enough to understand the business) to have some sense of how their efforts and contributions are going? Put more plainly, I know if I'm slacking, and I don't usually need my manager to tell me that I'm writing decent code or getting my work done. That said, this all surely depends a lot on the specifics of the work and the organization/teams involved. And also assumes some healthy and regular conversations between peers and between the Business and the development team.
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    I feel that a performance review cannot hurt you (unless they cut the worst n% of course). If they are giving you an honest assessment of how happy they are with you, you either know you're doing good and to stay the course or you know you're doing bad and to try something else. We've done yearly reviews in the last two places I worked (bonuses are also based on these reviews) and I like that cadence. It helps that I'm not too worried about getting fired without a fair shake, though.
- ltfey 5y ago
  Performance reviews are garbage. They are not needed. They exist as a way for the capital-owning class to remind workers that they are seen as subhuman and will be thrown back on the streets the minute they are no longer seen by their masters as productive. If someone needs to be fired, you don't need to put them through a humiliating process. Explain what happened and why, give them a decent severance and a good reference, and say goodbye. PIPs are a way for executives to externalize costs of firing unto the team (which has to deal with wrecked morale, an overtaxed manager, etc.) while claiming they "saved money on severance" by firing or force-quitting people for free. In the case of average performers, reviews are harmful because they prevent a person from being able to reinvent themselves. In the case of high performers, they are not really needed because they should know in other ways than being told, "You're a 4.3 and will stay a 4.3 as long as you don't annoy me", every year. And for managers, they consume an inordinate amount of time and make people unhappy. No one wins but the highest of the higher-ups who profit by pitting working people against each other.
  - allochthon 5y ago
    Performance reviews definitely feel like a flex of some kind, apart from any legal CYA. I have never wanted a performance review. It feels pretty easy to know where things stand just by assessing the quality of communication and where things are going with the team and the department.
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    > Performance reviews are garbage. They are not needed. They exist as a way for the capital-owning class to remind workers that they are seen as subhuman and will be thrown back on the streets the minute they are no longer seen by their masters as productive. It really depends. I have never felt this way about a performance review. I like being informed about whether my manager and I both agree on what my job is. As an added bonus, the day after a good review is when you are least worried about losing your job and your livelihood. Honestly it seems like your beef is with the lack of social safety nets and not with performance reviews themselves.
  - autoexec 5y ago
    > If someone needs to be fired, you don't need to put them through a humiliating process. Explain what happened and why, give them a decent severance and a good reference, and say goodbye. I don't think performance reviews should have a part in firings, and the metrics they use to rank/rate people are generally worthless, but it's actually nice to get feedback from time to time on how you're doing. I've had managers who I never heard from at all and that's not ideal. If a company is thinking they have to fire someone for performance reasons it's way easier for them to have documentation showing what has been going on and that they'd given the employee time to improve. It's better for the employee too to understand what the expectations are they're not meeting and to have a chance to explain what the causes are. I think most people would prefer that over being told out of the blue that they've been sucking at their job and escorted out the building.
geekbird 5y ago
I have worked at a subsidiary, and other companies worse than Amazon. Imagine if, instead of annual reviews are required to put 5% at the bottom of a stack rank and then "manage them out", you have quarterly stack ranks, where everyone knows who is in the ranking pool, and with two bad quarters you are out, even if it was just the luck of the draw, because management had to dump on someone. Stack ranking, plus rank and yank, absolutely destroys collaboration and teamwork. You can cram people into an open plan to "force" people to collaborate, but if you stack rank it will have no effect. You'll still end up with some pretty savage competition, up to and including being unwilling to help coworkers, unwilling to do anything for another team that is in the same stack rank pool, and some serious bragging and brown-nosing to have "visible" accomplishments (even if you have to steal them from your teammates.) The whole "rank and yank" thing needs to die in a fire, IMO. It's seriously abusive, and counterproductive in the long term, especially if you consider tribal knowledge and business improvements.

ctvo 5y ago

> The whole performance review thing feels like a proxy for something else I can't quite put my finger on, but feels creepy nonetheless. Stack ranking is one thing, but you're against performance reviews? How do you know if you're doing well or poorly in your job? Or does it not matter because firing is so difficult?

allochthon 5y ago
Stack ranking is not my cup of tea at all. But, yes, I'm kind of leaning against performance reviews as well. It's an open question in my mind. I appreciate that big companies might have a challenge on their hands, and I don't have a lot of answers, here. But in my experience, performance reviews have not added anything obviously positive to the workplace, and they're invariably a source of friction. Which seems willfully obtuse when a company has an attrition problem. And I say this as someone who is not considered a low performer.
noblepayne 5y ago
> but you're against performance reviews? It may be useful to further refine what we mean when we are talking about "performance reviews". Are we talking about regular discussions between Managers (or skip-level, or product stakeholders) and their reports, or are we talking about an HR-driven process that happens every x months? Personally (for whatever that's worth) I find the former helpful and the latter to be mostly a waste of time. > How do you know if you're doing well or poorly in your job? Just my 2¢, but I think most folks would acknowledge that it is easy to have a myopic view, and outside feedback is valuable. But, at the same time, I would expect most (non-junior) engineers (who have been at a company long enough to understand the business) to have some sense of how their efforts and contributions are going? Put more plainly, I know if I'm slacking, and I don't usually need my manager to tell me that I'm writing decent code or getting my work done. That said, this all surely depends a lot on the specifics of the work and the organization/teams involved. And also assumes some healthy and regular conversations between peers and between the Business and the development team.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  I feel that a performance review cannot hurt you (unless they cut the worst n% of course). If they are giving you an honest assessment of how happy they are with you, you either know you're doing good and to stay the course or you know you're doing bad and to try something else. We've done yearly reviews in the last two places I worked (bonuses are also based on these reviews) and I like that cadence. It helps that I'm not too worried about getting fired without a fair shake, though.
ltfey 5y ago
Performance reviews are garbage. They are not needed. They exist as a way for the capital-owning class to remind workers that they are seen as subhuman and will be thrown back on the streets the minute they are no longer seen by their masters as productive. If someone needs to be fired, you don't need to put them through a humiliating process. Explain what happened and why, give them a decent severance and a good reference, and say goodbye. PIPs are a way for executives to externalize costs of firing unto the team (which has to deal with wrecked morale, an overtaxed manager, etc.) while claiming they "saved money on severance" by firing or force-quitting people for free. In the case of average performers, reviews are harmful because they prevent a person from being able to reinvent themselves. In the case of high performers, they are not really needed because they should know in other ways than being told, "You're a 4.3 and will stay a 4.3 as long as you don't annoy me", every year. And for managers, they consume an inordinate amount of time and make people unhappy. No one wins but the highest of the higher-ups who profit by pitting working people against each other.
- allochthon 5y ago
  Performance reviews definitely feel like a flex of some kind, apart from any legal CYA. I have never wanted a performance review. It feels pretty easy to know where things stand just by assessing the quality of communication and where things are going with the team and the department.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  > Performance reviews are garbage. They are not needed. They exist as a way for the capital-owning class to remind workers that they are seen as subhuman and will be thrown back on the streets the minute they are no longer seen by their masters as productive. It really depends. I have never felt this way about a performance review. I like being informed about whether my manager and I both agree on what my job is. As an added bonus, the day after a good review is when you are least worried about losing your job and your livelihood. Honestly it seems like your beef is with the lack of social safety nets and not with performance reviews themselves.
- autoexec 5y ago
  > If someone needs to be fired, you don't need to put them through a humiliating process. Explain what happened and why, give them a decent severance and a good reference, and say goodbye. I don't think performance reviews should have a part in firings, and the metrics they use to rank/rate people are generally worthless, but it's actually nice to get feedback from time to time on how you're doing. I've had managers who I never heard from at all and that's not ideal. If a company is thinking they have to fire someone for performance reasons it's way easier for them to have documentation showing what has been going on and that they'd given the employee time to improve. It's better for the employee too to understand what the expectations are they're not meeting and to have a chance to explain what the causes are. I think most people would prefer that over being told out of the blue that they've been sucking at their job and escorted out the building.

geekbird 5y ago

I have worked at a subsidiary, and other companies worse than Amazon. Imagine if, instead of annual reviews are required to put 5% at the bottom of a stack rank and then "manage them out", you have quarterly stack ranks, where everyone knows who is in the ranking pool, and with two bad quarters you are out, even if it was just the luck of the draw, because management had to dump on someone. Stack ranking, plus rank and yank, absolutely destroys collaboration and teamwork. You can cram people into an open plan to "force" people to collaborate, but if you stack rank it will have no effect. You'll still end up with some pretty savage competition, up to and including being unwilling to help coworkers, unwilling to do anything for another team that is in the same stack rank pool, and some serious bragging and brown-nosing to have "visible" accomplishments (even if you have to steal them from your teammates.) The whole "rank and yank" thing needs to die in a fire, IMO. It's seriously abusive, and counterproductive in the long term, especially if you consider tribal knowledge and business improvements.