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.

Basically, we're graded on a curve and our immediate supervisors get in trouble for giving too many A's, regardless of actual performance.

Like msbelle said, this doesn't give employees any incentive to work to exceed expectations if your A work gets curved down to a B or lower. If you're going to give me a B or C no matter how good my work is, then I'm not going to bust my ass to give you A work. That is some kind of bullshit.

Right, there is only so much $$ to go around and only so many As that can be given, and you can't be an A 2 years in a row in the same job, and you can;t be an A your first year in a job. And people who never work with you, tell your boss that they don't think you were an A this year. It's all very stupid. And they want us to do even more work on these reviews, it is ridiculous and will be the main thing I give them feedback about when I leave.

I understand that the reason review processes are so ridiculous is that "not enough feedback on my work" is a big negative thing people say about their job. But don't they usually mean regular, immediate feedback? Like, they have a boss who they don't talk to. Not that they don't get to spend 800 hours filling out evaluation forms once a year.

I always hate it when a supervisor says, proudly, "I never give 'exceeds expectations' on a review". WTF? Are your expectations so high that no one can exceed them? or are you just playing mind games to get more out of your peons?