Annual reviews
 

I'm sitting here trying to finish my annual self-review. It's difficult to get motivated to do it since it does not mean anything. I'm kind of an island at work. My boss lets me have almost 100% control on what I do. He just needs to be able to answer to his boss, who has no idea how our team operates. We also use it to focus on what changes we want to make for the coming year. This is slightly more worthwhile.

I think my wife has the worst situation. Her company is undergoing a restructuring and her job has been "centralized." She found that out this summer and has been waiting for the layoff notice for about six months now. Last month, she was assigned to the transition team - to transition her work to the home office. Her new boss has two functions. Finding out what work she was doing and presumably who should do it going forward and to help find a job within the company. Her new boss asked for her self-review so she could do a review of her performance.

What is everyone experience here with the annual review process?

I had mine a couple weeks ago. It was due July 20th. After we are here 10 years we no longer qualify for a raise unless it is a cost of living increase, but I have a few moew years before I rach that point.

Pretty much the same as yours...Doesn't really mean much, we have raises based on a number scale, 1-5 based on performance. Just about everyone gets a 3, a few get a 4 and nobody gets a 5.

Completely worthless process since its almost a spin the bottle event to see who gets the 4's.

I work closely with my boss all year, so when I have to do a self review, its putting down on paper all the things he already knows but he says its justification for the "higher ups"...eh, it is what it is.

I'm kind of an island at work.

Same here. I'm the only one in my org at this site, and my boss is in a completely different geography.

Her new boss has two functions. Finding out what work she was doing and presumably who should do it

Same here. I'm supposed to be training people who are in his geography about the environment here and how to take it over, although they're trying to sell it as part of a DR plan. The people who are supposed to be learning it apparently don't give a rat's ass, and I haven't spoken to any of them in 3 or 4 months.

I've never had a raise at this job even when I've gotten a stellar review. In fact, I'm sure the reviews are predetermined based on how much they want to pay people the following year. Any kind of pay increase is added into the incentive program, so you get a larger cut if you exceed your goal, nothing if you don't. In my first year, I finished at 102% of goal, but got a "meets expectations" on my review. I protested that anything over 100% was, by definition, an "exceeds expectations." Boss said it was too late to change it.

Years ago sen. mgt. told all the directors to give everyone a "satisfactory" rating. One woman, who made it known she'd leave without a raise, was given a "exceeds expectations" so her boss could justify a raise. Another job I had all the directors were told to fire anyone who didn't get an "excellent." So everyone got an "excellent" because the directors didn't want to fire anyone, even if they weren't really excellent.

In short, reviews are a joke. They mean nothing. If you get a perfect review and they tell you pound sand when you ask for a raise, what are you going to do about it? The reason I haven't put my foot down is because I have not yet been able to find a better gig to keep in my back pocket if told to pound sand.

In fact, I'm sure the reviews are predetermined based on how much they want to pay people the following year.

It used to be even more insidious here: they had what was called "Forced Ranking" which meant that only x% could be ranked "A" and z% had be ranked "F" and everyone else was basically a C+, C, C- irrespective of how they actually performed. So if you had a dream team of Einstein, Curie, Planck, Oppenheimer and Telsa, the manager would be required to give one of those people an "F," and only one could get an "A," irrespective of how they actually performed. Management claims this is no longer done, but the cynic in me thinks they'll revive this practice if they haven't already.

Well, I can understand some value in making the bottom percentile leave or fire them each year. In a true sales performance environment, especially if 100% commission with no base or draw, the low performers can't afford to stick around. At my job, they just keep raising the bar based on your prior year's final revenue total. So, if they raise it 15% a year and you totally blew out your last year at 140% of goal, that revenue becomes your new baseline before they tack on the 15% goal hike. That means no one ever has two good years in a row. And the top performers often leave after a blowout year, while they can tout their ranking to their next employer in an interview.

At my job, they just keep raising the bar based on your prior year's final revenue total. So, if they raise it 15% a year and you totally blew out your last year at 140% of goal, that revenue becomes your new baseline before they tack on the 15% goal hike.

Seems like a good strategy to make sure nobody sticks around and makes good commissions.

Ours are a joke. They have no bearing on pay/promotion, and it's common to have managers request that employees "write their own so I can see your thoughts". Which is a nice way of telling your employees that they don't want to make the time. We also have a bell curve rating philosophy, the last time I didn't receive an excellent rating was because my boss's director told him that everyone was average.

As a manager, it is what you make of it. I always wrote 100% of my employee reviews, and frankly cared little about the standard forms. The conversation is the value, and it's a regular interval in which you can discuss employee progress, room for improvement, goals, next assignments, etc. I tried to make them useful despite being useless.

I'm commission....my paychecks are the real review. But, we still go thru one once a year and they mean nothing. My boss is a great guy but he can't even offer up any constructive criticism anymore as things have been very good the last few years. I wish there was something I could take away from them other than.."you're doing good, keep it up!"

On the contrary, it's a pretty comfortable gig in a very bad job market. So people live with it. But this kind of BS would not have flown about 10 yrs. ago. The downside for me is that, even though my income goes up each year, I never finish at or above 100%. That makes it hard to get job offers from places that say, "must have documented track record of exceeding quotas" or something to that effect. Our commission is sort of an all-or-nothing deal and each month is a standalone. If you don't hit 70% of your goal, you get nothing. Anything above 70% of goal and you get something. You can actually make more by being just below 100% of goal each year because then you're not set up to fail the following year. And that's right where I usually finish. But I could never say such a thing in a job interview with another prospective employer as some excuse as to why I don't always blow my goals out.

I would see it the complete opposite Rick, if I were to interview you. If you were to tell me you specifically aim for just under your goals, I would be intrigued as to why. When you explained it like you have in this thread, I, personally, would see it as you figured out a glaring hole in the system and immediately start to think about my system and would you have the same problem in it. I would think this would benefit you two ways: first, I'm already envisioning you in the job and two, I didn't have the same underachieving schmoe on my hands listening to him make up BS of why his goals weren't met (boss hated me, customers wont buy, etc)

Of course, I know my theoretical job interview isn't the way it happens in the real world:)

Ah, but I don't aim to end up below 100%. It's just works out that way and I manage to increase my income every year this way, despite never getting a base salary raise. We can code billing in ways that count toward products that have incentive bonuses and, so I do. I'd rather increase my income steadily year over year than blowout one year and then make $50k less the next because my goal exploded due to so far exceeding it the previous year....as plenty of my co-workers have done.

You never know what's going to happen later in the year, so you have to swing for the fences all the time. I usually blow out Q1 (it's just the business cycle in my client base), so I have a nice buffer when things start slowing down. I'm within striking distance when Q4 starts, but if anything goes wrong in Nov. or Dec. (usually does), it drops me below 100%. My boss, who is a ball buster, has said to me a few times, "Well, look at the upside. You'll have a lower goal next year."

Honestly, I make this job work for me. I did not get into sales for the recognition or to go the president's club trip. I don't care about plaques or trophies. I consider my review to be my W2. And as long as that goes up each year, I consider myself always improving.

My bonus structure sucks. 80% is based on the team's performance and 20% based on company performance. Nothing tied to individual performance. I've had a good year so far, but the rest of the team has not. Looks like my bonus will be about 40% of max (that 20% company part is never paid out, always an excuse). Using the same calc, but if it was based just on my performance it would be 66%.

Oh well, I'm sure it will work out for the best in the long run.

I hate giving reviews. Hired an HR guy to take care of things like this. I have two employees who still work directly under me and every year at review time he wants me to come up with two things each had done extremely well and two things they need to improve. These people were working for me when HR genius was still in college. They know their jobs extremely well and do them extremely well. I can't think of two things they need to improve every frikkin' year. So he and I butt heads and I put it down as a negative when i review him.

I had mine all year long. As long as I don't crash the bus, I'm still working.

My review was uneventful with no surprises. I started at Ford in July and this 6 months has been spent learning the tools we use to manage the antivirus environment for 350k devices. I used to be a supervisor, so I know what's expected of me and I'll get there again. Excellent coworkers and supervisor, so that's nice!

Now if we could just find my wife a full-time teaching job! She's substitute teaching now and she's teaching almost every day, they really like her but there aren't any openings...

My boss is a jerk

I hated that "review crap" and am SO glad to be out of that bs game. I had a pretty unique skill set (Communications Systems Programmer/networking guru + a lot more), and had so many managers over the years I couldn't begin to count 'em all. I simply refused to play the "game". I knew my "value", and so did they even though most didn't have a clue as to what I actually did. Maxed out for years...you fail to "treat me right" and I'm moving on to greener pastures :)

Aren't you your boss? I agree.