For the first 5 years of my career – with 5 different companies – I never received a performance review. Not once. Not even after asking and hounding my manager for months. I hounded him because I was told performance reviews were how your manager evaluated you to give you raises and promotions, but as I soon learned, in my industry that’s not exactly the case.
The Beginning Of Feedback
So when I got my current job and was told that not only do they have annual, but also quarterly reviews, I was over the moon! 5 reviews a year to discuss what I was doing right (I’d never had positive reinforcement before either…) and what I could improve. 5 chances to show my manager what awesome things I was doing since they usually have literally no idea. I was so excited!
Preparing for Battle
So when my first review rolled around I was prepped to the nines – I had reasons written out for why I thought I was at each level of competency. I pushed myself to write a glowing (though accurate) assessment even though that makes me uncomfortable (it’s similar to the discomfort I feel talking myself up in interviews, but you got to do it!) I was ready for anything. I felt like I was preparing for battle, but was delighted to find out that everything that was said about me was positive! I hadn’t expected that – not because I didn’t think I was doing a good job, but because this was basically a different career than I’d ever been in before and a role that was completely different, work that was completely different. So I left without having to use any of my war-time preparedness. And it made me wonder: what is the point of these reviews?
Hustling For Dollar Bills
Later I was told that the quarterly reviews are used to determine the stretch bonus we receive: a max of $5,000 pre-tax per year. Oooh so this is the reason to hustle! $5,000 is a quarter of what I spend in a year – that’s a good chunk of change to strive for. So I prepped again for battle, went through several review gauntlets and emerged: deflated.
A Rude Monetary Awakening
After several quarterly reviews, I realized that the amount of the stretch bonus I received did not seem to correlate with when I had the most impressive wins for the company that we discussed during reviews. So I asked some pointed questions and discovered: performance reviews have little to do with the bonus we receive….WHAT?!
Apparently the stretch bonus is mostly determined by how the company is doing: how high our resource utilization and profit margins are….so you’re telling me I was busting my ass trying to get a bigger bonus and I had basically no power over it? What was the point of meeting every 3 months (or less) to discuss what I’m doing wrong and what I’m doing right? This is when I started grasping for anything to justify this process. I started thinking that if we’re not striving for a monetary reward the purpose must be personal growth!
How About Personal Growth?
I dove back in and meticulously wrote down all the feedback I received and made a plan for how I would improve each one. One ‘growth opportunity’ was me speaking up more in giant meetings (meetings that were too long already with too many opinions…), but that’s what my boss said I needed to do to ‘grow’ so I did it. I even cataloged every meeting and which ones I spoke up in and how many times compared to last quarter so I could show actual percentage growth in something that seems intangible. I presented this to my boss and was provided with: more growth opportunities. This is where the excitement over performance reviews finally began to completely unravel.
It’s Never Enough
There is always another wrung to strive for. There is never “you’re doing exactly what you should be doing in this aspect of your job. Great work!” There are always “growth opportunities” and there is always more. It reminded me of lifestyle inflation, but for career growth. Never be satisfied. And it didn’t sit well with me. If I hit a goal that you set and there’s just another higher goal behind it, what was the purpose of working so hard for that original goal? It didn’t seem to translate into bigger career success by any definition. This isn’t personal growth – this is a never-ending hamster wheel. I can’t imagine CEOs look at their performance reviews (do they even have those?…who would administer them? I’m getting side tracked) and see “Great job! Keep doing what you’re doing.”
In Conclusion
What performance reviews turned out to be was not what I wanted: unattainable goals, goals that had no bearing on my actual work or life. I get amazing feedback from my colleagues, boss and clients, but this review process seems to just try to find something, anything to improve to keep you striving for that unattainable “more.” And I was over it. At one time I was hungry for performance reviews to help boost and focus my career only to discover they seem hollow – and useless.
What do you think? I’m really curious to hear other opinions on this. Have performance reviews helped in your career? Do you think they have a correlation to raises and promotions? Do they help you improve yourself and your work?
Interesting post! I’ve never been interested in performance reviews, because I never wanted to move up or get assigned more work 🙂
We are supposed to have performance reviews where I’m at, but my boss and I both aren’t a fan. If I want to make more money, it’s a million times easier for me to just go out and find a new job.
Thank you! And you’re so smart 🙂 . As of landing this current job I also don’t want to move up or be assigned more work and strangely our performance reviews don’t seem to have either of those as a goal. They’re just – something to waste time on it seems. I can’t think of another purpose. If we’re not doing well at our job my company has no qualms putting people on performance improvement plans and then just firing them, as they have with many other people. No performance reviews needed with that kind of feedback system 🙂 .
You and your boss’ relationship sounds awesome. Maybe I’ll try to get away with something similar…And yes, completely illogically, it really is a lot easier to convince a stranger to give you more money than the people who see you doing a great job every day. Makes no sense. Thank you for stopping by!
I’ve never had an official performance review at any of my previous jobs. The job I’m at now does them, but I won’t be up for one until some time next year, so I’ll have to give an update once it comes around.
Your reviews sound similar to the ones they did at my stepdad’s job. (Where he worked for more than 20 years and got promoted, then demoted, without any explanation! That’s another story.) Anyway, it does seem like a lot of performance reviews are to dangle the proverbial carrot in front of you, to make you think if you just work a little harder, you’ll get that A+ review. Of course it won’t happen. The best option in my opinion, is to do your personal best rather than trying to jump all the corporate hurdles.
Good luck with your review when the time comes! And oh my goodness – promoted and then demoted?! I definitely want to hear more about that. And your approach is spot on. I’m happy with the work I do – I don’t need the proverbial carrot, especially since it doesn’t seem linked to any monetary or personal gain.
they are completely useless. i’ve been at this work thing since ’93 and the first real review i did was very honest on my part. i knew my capabilities and they used it against me to give me a crappy raise. since then i just write that i’m great but my pay hasn’t really changed due to any of those. in a small company they’ll just pay you what you’re worth. it’s all about getting the money, coming from a jaded employee.
Great to hear what a ‘seasoned’ worker like yourself has experienced. I guess it’s not just me. I’m sorry they wasted your time doing these reviews just to give crappy raises. That sucks. Hat tip from one jaded employee to another! Thank you for stopping by 🙂
I’ve been on both sides of many performance reviews. If done correctly they can be of use, but constant “goal inflation” like you mentioned is all too common. Everyone doesn’t want to reach the next rung of the ladder and take on more work, and doing a good job at the task should be recognized for what it is sometimes, and just leave be.
Awesome to hear they can be useful!
“Everyone doesn’t want to reach the next rung of the ladder” – SO true and it’s weird to me how this is expected to be what you want. They never even ask! Everyone just assumes you want to keep climbing and based on talking to my colleagues I haven’t heard that from anyone yet. They want more money (which comes with the next rung…sometimes), but not the next level or becoming more of a manager of people than a producer of work. You’re so spot on. Thank you for stopping by!
Performance reviews spoil things the same as grading does to young students. I am happy to have figured that out, and like Freddy, I worked for small comapanies. So, I was able to stare my boss down one time when he marked me down for not coming in by nine, and pointed out that I often stay until 2am, so if he wants me in early, I’ll keep to an 8 hour day. Enough said. He just laughed and we acknowledged the exercise was silly.
At big bureaucratic places it can be a different dance. Early in my career, one of my mentors at a big company advised me to never be happy with my raise. He said the bosses were forced to divide up the raises and you could never make it easy for them to slight you.
Great analogy. Maybe that’s why I still love learning, unlike a lot of my friends who went to a graded school all through their lives. Montessori alum over here! I loved it.
Oh my goodness that’s a great example of how small companies operate! And wild that they would mark you down for something so crazy! And 2am?!?! What were you doing there so late??
I agree with most of what’s already been said. I’ve been with the same company for 13+ years. I’ve had probably 4 or 5 legit performance reviews. None of them had any bearing on my personal growth, merit increase, or my bonus opportunity for that matter.
I’ve always been a proponent of the performance review process, but I’ve become disillusioned (as you have). I think they are a useful tool in principle, but rarely work in practice. Sort of disappointing..
“A useful tool in principle, but rarely work in practice.” Well said. Someone recently told me they thought performance reviews should be done away with, but that having a company that encourages you to ask for feedback would be more helpful – good and bad feedback when you want it and want to act on it. That approach seems like it would possibly help with personal growth at least, which seems to be the only option on the table for improvement from formal reviews anyway.
Whoah APL, reading your post gave me such horrible flashbacks to my own experience last year. I got a pretty decent review from my boss (in all areas of work except one – socialising and networking LOL). And my company was pretty profitable. I was so excited, I thought the bonuses and increment would be good, if not at least decent. But they weren’t. In fact, my increment was only $25. $25!! Everyone in my workplace got hit with the same crappy bonuses and increments. Turns out that everything is just disgustingly discretionary. The bigger bosses were willing to pay themselves a lot, but unwilling to pay their employees much. OH and in exchange for that, we all got even tighter KPIs to reach.
I figure that’s just life in the corporate world, though. No company will ever be willing to pay their employees when they aren’t doing well. And no company will ever know the notion of “enough”. I guess we just have to step off this never-ending hamster wheel as soon as possible.
Oh no! I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to give you flashbacks! And $25?!?! That’s crazy! And yeah we need a system where the people at the top don’t get to decide their own bonuses…maybe we should decide theirs since they decide ours 🙂 . I’m sorry you went through that and with tighter KPIs on top of it?! No thank you!
Yeah that might just be the corporate world though my European friends tell me it’s a little different over there (companies seem to care about employees with months of vacation and policies that don’t allow them to work late). Sigh – one can dream. I’m obviously with you on stepping off the hamster wheel – let’s do this!
Don’t worry about it at all! Yeah $25 sucks big time but I guess I’ll wait till next March to see what my next increment would be. My job is still pretty chill, so I love that. It’s the only reason I’m still here 🙂 I agree with you man, we should decide how well our own bosses are doing!
Thanks for the insight about Europe! It sounds awesome. Too good to be true, even. Maybe one day 😉
“If I hit a goal that you set and there’s just another higher goal behind it, what was the purpose of working so hard for that original goal? It didn’t seem to translate into bigger career success by any definition. This isn’t personal growth – this is a never-ending hamster wheel.”
– Brilliantly said, that’s exactly what it is.
I am sick to death of performance reviews. In my company managers are required to give reviews to a bell curve – so they are forced to grade say one high performer, one low performer and the rest in the middle. How much more demoralising can you get? Sometimes a whole team is just amazing but can’t be recognised that way. Madness.
No disrespect to the many excellent HR people out there, but corporate performance reviews are HR gone mad in my opinion.
You’re too sweet! Making my day over here. And oh my goodness that bell curve sounds horrible and makes no sense! I’m seriously wracking my brain trying to think of how that would be helpful…I’ve got nothing so far. That’s super demoralizing I agree. And yes no disrespect to HR (my Mom was an HR person actually after being an engineer and inspired this post lol!). It sounds like I’m not too far off based on these responses! Thank you for stopping by.
Firethe9to5 – This is an excellent point! I completely glossed over that. In Asia, we’re graded on a bell curve as well. I think most companies here function like that. And I work in a small company, my team having only 3 people. Which means that one of us would do great. One would be average. And the last person would draw the short straw. It’s dreadful, to be honest.
That’s insanity. Wow.
Yep, pretty much worthless. I can’t think of a single instance in my career when the feedback in a performance review was helpful OR when it had any real bearing on what my financial rewards were going to be.
Don’t kid yourself — work is a popularity contest, and it’s not about the actual work that you do.
Great to hear your perspective! It seems to be basically unanimous that they’re not helpful. Hearing that work is a popularity contest and not about the work you do is not helping motivate me on this Monday unfortunately 😉 . At least it’s another sunny day in WA – that’s something I can be happy about. Thank you for stopping by!
Am I the only one here who’s had positive experiences with performance reviews? Maybe it’s just my personality and how I approach them? Helps that there have been true incentives behind them.
I’ve had performance reviews at 3 companies now, every 6 months.
Usually filled with positive feedback, but yep, definitely full of advice about how to get to the next rung. That’s usually the general assumption. I’ve always had frank discussions with my bosses and this is no different where if I didn’t want to climb the ladder, I’ve flat out said that! Then the conversations changes to how to streamline my current role. How to achieve the same amount of work in less time and less stress. Beneficial to myself and my employer.
Compensation. While my salary wasn’t always high, I usually got decent bonuses or decent % increases in pay that we’re somewhat relevant to my performance. Company standard increase might have been 2% but if you had a good review it could be in the 5-6% increase. Base bonus based on company performance might be $1500 but could double on a good personal performance. Definitely helps when there are incentives behind the review as it sounded like what you were expecting! Too many companies just use it as lip service to string people along. Sorry, a pat on the back isn’t always enough. Pay up. Haha.
Finally! That’s awesome to hear you find them helpful! And true incentives would be great – maybe that would make them useful in my eyes. And I totally agree: Pay Up!
That’s so amazing you told your boss you didn’t want to climb the ladder! Maybe I should tell mine that – I’m worried that would effect what kind of raises etc I would get, but I should just bite the bullet and see what actually happens! Thanks so much for the idea!
My company has annual performance reviews which consist of a bunch of categories with “Superior, Above Average, Average, Needs Work, and Poor” check boxes next to them. My supervisor fills it out, then gives it to me for review. I give it back to them, they give it to their supervisor for review, put some generic “thanks for all your hard work” type comment, then they give it back to me for further review. I then give it back to them yet again, and a few days later I receive a copy of it.
As we are unionized, this has nothing to do with pay rate, bonuses (don’t get them), or anything else immediately discernible. My theory is they do them to give themselves something to point to when asked what they do for their job.
Wow they actually have a “poor” category?! I feel like “needs work” is as low as you need to go! Also that process sounds ridiculous. I’m so sorry you have to go through that. It definitely sounds like they’re just making work for themselves. I’ve never heard of such a blatant attempt before!
It’s a double edge sword. They mean really well because you get to see where you are at. Otherwise, you have no idea if you are doing great or terrible. However, it feeds into the corporate for raising the bar and squeezing someone to become their best for profits. That’s where I draw the line. While I think they are great to have to help people realize where they are at and how they can improve, it should be up to them and not feel pressured to overperform for performance sake.
That’s an interesting point “Otherwise, you have no idea if you are doing great or terrible.” In my experience I always know if I’m not doing well – I’m constantly told by my boss (even at times when it wasn’t true…Guess negging is alive and well…) so I found performance reviews not very helpful because I already was getting that constant feedback so when we sat down it wouldn’t be to ever discuss what I was doing right (that also wasn’t mentioned in the day to day), just what I was doing wrong…but not how to fix it…Not that helpful for me 🙂 . It’s great to hear your experience has been different though.
Completely agree that the corporate machine has turned reviews into a game of “overperform for performance sake,” which to me makes no sense (putting aside the profit reason for a second). In my mind, a team plays to the strengths of each other and doesn’t try to make people into something they’re not or some kind of SUPERbusinessperson. That doesn’t seem productive to me personally. Thank you for your perspective!
I think I’ve had … 2 in my career so far? First two jobs in journalism – there were zero HR processes. 3rd job I was only at barely over a year.
At my current job there are TONS of HR processes, so annual review as well as quarterly development checkins and another kind of review where we talk about how we’re fulfilling the company values, or something like that…
I’m with Luxe, I’ve never wanted to move up either and my progression has always been about moving on.
Fascinating! Do the tons of HR processes at your current job help you in any way or is it just creating more stuff to do without any pay off? It sounds like the latter. And I’m totally with you and Luxe – I tried to move up early in my career because that’s how you got more money and that was the only reason I did it – it also turned out that at every level the job was actually the same. Biggest lie I’d been told. Thank you for stopping by!
Oh Boy!! Where do I begin? I have been through the hell hole of performance reviews a lot of times in my career. I have experienced the rudimentary, “You are doing good. There is definitely scope of improvement here” comment to “You need to step up!” I have seen the entire spectrum of colors shown to employees with the promise to translate them to $ amounts!
But this particular job I am currently at is probably the sanest of all. I not only have no variable component to my compensation (Yaayyy!!!) I don’t get to hear crappy feedback disguised as a performance review. I simply have frequent one-on-ones with my manager and we course correct as we go. A lot of focus is on getting stuff done and not on some BS metric.
Also being in an engineering team in a small company helps since they mean business and you mean no BS!
So glad your current job is the most sane yet! I’m sorry you had to go through reviews at the previous ones – that doesn’t sound fun or helpful! “A lot of focus is on getting stuff done and not on some BS metric” -> I love this and am trying to do more of this myself! Thanks so much for stopping by!