Apr

10

Performance Reports Do Not Matter (much)

April 10, 2008 |

I did worked as an employee for around 11 years and every year I got a performance report that was outstanding. I have saved all of them. All of them are almost perfect except for a couple of items where I get 4 instead of 5 – sometimes my manager even told me that although I was great, he/she could not give me 5 on everything. But my most important discovery is that there was no correlation between my salary increases and my scores, or even the praises I got on the report. (It went all over the board, from 3 to 30%)  I also compare the feedback and goals of one year with the content, feedback and goal of the next year, by the same manager, and they hold no correlation. I am not the only one who thinks Performance Reviews are not so useful – other human resources bloggers tend to agree (8 hours & lunch, Team Building).

Performance reports are just a way of the corporation to make you feel like they are paying attention to how well you behave, giving you a prize for your good behavior, and explaining why they will not give you more. In my opinion, it is a way of giving you a 4% increase even if their earnings or revenue increase by 20%. (Not that they are bad, companies still give you around a 4% increase even if their earnings or revenues drop by 20%).

While Performance Reviews are mostly a waste of time, they do give a good opportunity to sit down with your manager and exchange ideas an opinions. It does gives an opportunity to ask your manager a few questions that may (or may not) help you find your path.  Your manager is required by human resources to spend time with you, so you might as well make something useful out of it.  Some questions I may like to ask him/her:

  • “tell me a time when I made you mad at me last year.”
  • “tell me who likes and who dislikes my work in this company.”
  • “do you think we will make our earnings/sales number? Do you think we will meet our milestones this year? Why?”
  • “if you where in my situation, what would be the next job/task/position you would aspire to?”
  • “if you where to replace me with someone else in the company, who you would replace me with?”
  • “what is your next career move?”
  • “if you ever move to another company, would you take me with you?”
  • “if I was applying to another job, what would you say about me?”
  • “how can we help each other advance?”
  • “have you ever thought of starting your own company? Would you partner with me?”

I consider myself very straightforward, straight talker, blunt, and direct. You may want to change the tone, or the questions. But the most important part is that you turn a waste of time into an opportunity to build a relationship with your manager that conduces both of you to advance in your careers.


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