My company won't allow people to be rated Above Expectations or whatever is above that multiple years in a row, so I flat out told my boss I wouldn't even be trying to perform above a Meets Expectations every other year. You set up the system that way, be prepared for people to play towards it. I do my job, I am not bonus eligible, we don't have any sort of tracking software evaluating us, so it is all subjective and then when my boss tells you what he thinks, you kick it back to him most times anyway and tell him to lower it, so nope, nothing above and beyond from me unless I find it interesting or I feel my job depends on it.
I fully embrace that I go through waves of being a barely average employee.
As always, yearly reviews are stupid.
I've had my own business for 30 years now so I am the only one to review my performance, well and my customers. Back in the day I had a job for a huge corporate entity and we had this performance board with all the peeps names and scores and such. After a couple weeks or so of being at the top I asked what one had to do to advance in the organization. My boss told me that advancement was on a seniority basis only. I took a quick glance at the 80 or so people doing the exact same thing as me and gave my 3 day notice (end of that week). He called me unprofessional for not giving him more notice. Yeah, I have no regrets.
We're entering "PEP season," where "PEP" means Performance Evaluation something-or-other-starting-with-P. However, we also just finished a major restructuring, with revised official goals, so most people's jobs are only tangentially related to whatever they put in their PEPs last year. Our Director wisely told the supervisors that this year's PEP review would be entirely
pro forma,
because we've all been working toward shiny new metrics since around last October, so it's stupid to hold us to standards set up last May. This place has some of the saner management I've worked with in my ~30 years of gainful employment
you kick it back to him most times anyway and tell him to lower it
What does this mean?
If I'm interpreting it correctly, immediate supervisor tries to give good reviews but when they're submitted up the chain, higher-ups bounce them back because you're not allowed to give so many "exceeds expectations". My boss tells me this happens with our reviews every year. Basically, we're graded on a curve and our immediate supervisors get in trouble for giving too many A's, regardless of actual performance.
I finally had a check-in with my boss where I didn't cry about my mid-year reviews or something else (we check in on the phone now, so I'm a little more apt to cry and hope she didn't notice...)!
And we just got a notice about annual reviews starting up. Ha. ha. ha.
At least I'm pretty confident the traumatic part of the mid-years won't be revisited.
Ohhhh, I thought the "you" in that sentence was the employee being reviewed and could not figure it out.
Basically, we're graded on a curve and our immediate supervisors get in trouble for giving too many A's, regardless of actual performance.
Stack ranking! MSFT had the added problem of each manager going up the food chain had to fight other managers to get the limited number of A's for their employees.
I suspect my company has gone to stack ranking, but not told anyone.
Person who uses my email address just bought $100 worth of medical marijuana from a place in Tuscon.
