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Performance reviews, quite possibly the worst idea corporate America has ever had.

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I had my 6 month performance review today, and I was blown away at just how inaccurate and biased it was.

When my boss gave me the examples he had of my "glaring flaws", they were single occurrences, such as being 20 minutes late after having my schedule changed THE DAY PRIOR without being informed of the change and that I don't "thank customers for their patronage". Basically, a bunch of generalizations and a few one time errors.

I was told that I'm only occasionally helpful with customers, that I'm not dependable, and that I do poor quality work. The report claimed that I have the potential to be a great employee, but those are "very rare occurrences".

Any other employee below management would say otherwise, as would the vast majority of customers I deal with, and I've had quite a few say to my other bosses that I had been extremely helpful and attentive to their needs.

I want to take this to HR and claim that the whole review is exaggerated and inaccurate, but I don't know what kind of grounds I could really base it off of.

What I do know is, by the time I had reached the final summary on the review sheet, I was about ready to just grab my coat and leave. There was no objective criticism. It was essentially just 30 minutes of my boss telling me how bad of a job I do without explaining why he feels that way.

The biggest problem here lies in the fact that I only work with him maybe 2 out of every 5 days I work, and on top of that, management doesn't see 95% of the work that I actually do. They can't be objective if they don't get the majority of the picture, which they haven't done.

I'm thoroughly frustrated at the whole experience, and I feel even more discouraged about my job because I've been lumped with a list of "you suck" and no clear way to improve.

I don't know if anyone else hates performance reviews, but the rest of the internet seems to think that it's fairly common to hate these things.
 
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You know you can politely disagree with performance review right? Also, you don't have to sign them without first stating your case for it to be changed. Performance review are (supposed) to be a two way street.

Also, don't be silly, corporate america is full of horrible ideas :)
 
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Sorry to hear you had a negative experience with what should be a constructive dialogue.

Was the performance review a face to face thing or did you simply receive a report of your perceived performance ?

These reviews should be face to face and it needs to be a constructive session with honest feedback and evaluation. Also, what were you evaluated against ...... did you set Performance Objectives at the beginning of the year and did you define " Measures of Success " upfront.

Don't know about your company's ethics and HR processes, but I assume you could gently disagree with the outcome, if you have factual data to support you.

My suggestion would be to ask your manager for some face to face time ( at least one hour ) and ask the " why " questions .... then ask " How he believes you could improve " and define measures of success. Be prepared to make suggestions as well.

I have been doing these evaluations for nearly 30 years and this process needs to be well prepared and approached constructively.
After all, human capital is the company's most valuable asset, and is a critical success factor for any company.

Don't let your disappointment take the upper hand, ask feedback and schedule another appointment within a week while you digest the feedback.

Hope it will turn out allright for you !

Cheers
McBie
 
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Definitely go in an sit with someone in HR to go over it. If you disagree, but don't know how to proceed with dealing with the situation, your HR department SHOULD help you with that. After all, that's part of their job. Go over the performance review honestly and in detail and ask them for their objective opinion. They should be able to help you out if there is no just cause for the remarks. If they can't help you out, then I'm sorry to say you probably don't have many other options, and if you strongly feel the way you do and nobody in the company is willing to help, it may be time to start looking for a new place to work.

I know how you feel about having someone review you performance who knows nothing about it. I had a job where the person who did my performance review was basically 2 levels above me and never actually worked with me or saw my performance directly. How can that person possibly give a good performance review?? It was ridiculous. The person directly above me worked with me constantly and, in my opinion, should have been doing all of the performance reviews. But, that's what you get when an upper level manager wants to micro-manage, but has no real clue about what's going on. In the end it came down to whoever he liked the most because he had little else to base a decision on. That was a broken system.
 
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Derek McNelly
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In the end it came down to whoever he liked the most because he had little else to base a decision on. That was a broken system.

THIS. So much of this. One or two minor incidents that were resolved as they happened brought down the whole review, and there was no ongoing feedback whatsoever.

If there is a problem, it should be addressed as it happens, not 6 months down the road.

And McBie, thank you for your input. It was done face to face, and I did express my disapproval in the face to face. I explained to my manager that it would be more constructive to address problems when they come up, and that I could use some suggestions towards how to improve.

The problem most of this stems from is that I've been shuffled around different departments quite a bit in the past 6 months, and only in the past 4 have I been in a steady position, however, I worked with this particular manager very rarely, so my relationship with him is non existant.

Basically, it was a lot of speculation and exaggeration on the part of management, and an overall failure to correct problems while they were still problems.
 
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I had my 6 month performance review today, and I was blown away at just how inaccurate and biased it was.

When my boss gave me the examples he had of my "glaring flaws", they were single occurrences, such as being 20 minutes late after having my schedule changed THE DAY PRIOR without being informed of the change and that I don't "thank customers for their patronage". Basically, a bunch of generalizations and a few one time errors.

I was told that I'm only occasionally helpful with customers, that I'm not dependable, and that I do poor quality work. The report claimed that I have the potential to be a great employee, but those are "very rare occurrences".

Any other employee below management would say otherwise, as would the vast majority of customers I deal with, and I've had quite a few say to my other bosses that I had been extremely helpful and attentive to their needs.

I want to take this to HR and claim that the whole review is exaggerated and inaccurate, but I don't know what kind of grounds I could really base it off of.

What I do know is, by the time I had reached the final summary on the review sheet, I was about ready to just grab my coat and leave. There was no objective criticism. It was essentially just 30 minutes of my boss telling me how bad of a job I do without explaining why he feels that way.

The biggest problem here lies in the fact that I only work with him maybe 2 out of every 5 days I work, and on top of that, management doesn't see 95% of the work that I actually do. They can't be objective if they don't get the majority of the picture, which they haven't done.

I'm thoroughly frustrated at the whole experience, and I feel even more discouraged about my job because I've been lumped with a list of "you suck" and no clear way to improve.

I don't know if anyone else hates performance reviews, but the rest of the internet seems to think that it's fairly common to hate these things.

Wait, don't you work the drive through window of a chicken joint? ;D
 

cwa107


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If you have a decent manager, your performance reviews should NEVER contain any surprises. You should know about the problems when and if they occur. If you were expecting a good review and got a bad one, your manager is simply not doing his/her job.
 
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If you have a decent manager, your performance reviews should NEVER contain any surprises. You should know about the problems when and if they occur. If you were expecting a good review and got a bad one, your manager is simply not doing his/her job.
Truth right here.
 
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Derek McNelly
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If you have a decent manager, your performance reviews should NEVER contain any surprises. You should know about the problems when and if they occur. If you were expecting a good review and got a bad one, your manager is simply not doing his/her job.

Thank you. That is exactly what I was thinking.

Wait, don't you work the drive through window of a chicken joint? ;D

No, but I do frequent one. ;D
 
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I had my 6 month performance review today, and I was blown away at just how inaccurate and biased it was.

When my boss gave me the examples he had of my "glaring flaws", they were single occurrences, such as being 20 minutes late after having my schedule changed THE DAY PRIOR without being informed of the change and that I don't "thank customers for their patronage". Basically, a bunch of generalizations and a few one time errors.

I was told that I'm only occasionally helpful with customers, that I'm not dependable, and that I do poor quality work. The report claimed that I have the potential to be a great employee, but those are "very rare occurrences".

Any other employee below management would say otherwise, as would the vast majority of customers I deal with, and I've had quite a few say to my other bosses that I had been extremely helpful and attentive to their needs.

I want to take this to HR and claim that the whole review is exaggerated and inaccurate, but I don't know what kind of grounds I could really base it off of.

What I do know is, by the time I had reached the final summary on the review sheet, I was about ready to just grab my coat and leave. There was no objective criticism. It was essentially just 30 minutes of my boss telling me how bad of a job I do without explaining why he feels that way.

The biggest problem here lies in the fact that I only work with him maybe 2 out of every 5 days I work, and on top of that, management doesn't see 95% of the work that I actually do. They can't be objective if they don't get the majority of the picture, which they haven't done.

I'm thoroughly frustrated at the whole experience, and I feel even more discouraged about my job because I've been lumped with a list of "you suck" and no clear way to improve.

I don't know if anyone else hates performance reviews, but the rest of the internet seems to think that it's fairly common to hate these things.

Honestly I wouldnt pay too much mind to it.... unless it affects your hours and pay-grade(which it usually does) then I would call up HR
 

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