Reply to: 101 Reasons why appraisals are useless.

[MPwannadecentincome]

I've just had to write an appraisal for one of my testers. I'm very pleased with his work, but unfortunately I've had a nasty experience in the past with giving people a good appraisal. The manager who is trying to keep their salary within budget starts dreaming up criticism when you reward them highly on all fronts. The guy I've just appraised is not gifted in communication; he's a quiet, very intelligent person who always gives a rational and expert opinion when asked. Trouble is, I've been asked to assess, among other things, his ' interpersonal skills' , and I can't say they're brilliant when everyone knows they aren't. Trouble is, I don't need him to be a great communicator; I need him to be a good tester, and that he is; a very, very good tester. So I have to mark him down (not unsatisfactory though) on something that just isn't relevant to the work he does in this organisation, and I feel awful about that.

To make it worse, there are reorganisations and the guy is scared of losing his job.

Sorry, but I have a conscience. I tried to word everything as positively as possible.

Are there not different categories to grade them on, or you just have to write a few sentences?

A few sentences gets interpreted by HR and the boss's boss any way they like.

[Mich the Tester]

I've just had to write an appraisal for one of my testers. I'm very pleased with his work, but unfortunately I've had a nasty experience in the past with giving people a good appraisal. The manager who is trying to keep their salary within budget starts dreaming up criticism when you reward them highly on all fronts. The guy I've just appraised is not gifted in communication; he's a quiet, very intelligent person who always gives a rational and expert opinion when asked. Trouble is, I've been asked to assess, among other things, his ' interpersonal skills' , and I can't say they're brilliant when everyone knows they aren't. Trouble is, I don't need him to be a great communicator; I need him to be a good tester, and that he is; a very, very good tester. So I have to mark him down (not unsatisfactory though) on something that just isn't relevant to the work he does in this organisation, and I feel awful about that.

To make it worse, there are reorganisations and the guy is scared of losing his job.

Sorry, but I have a conscience. I tried to word everything as positively as possible.

[expat]

At the last appraisal I had when I was a permie, I was accused of letting the side down by going on holiday during the acceptance tests of a major project. I’d actually arranged my holiday so as not to clash with the project planning and had worked very long days to make sure that at least the tests were prepared on time, but the project was delayed by so many months that it clashed. This was counted as an ‘unsatisfactory’ and I was informed that my salary would only be raised in line with inflation and I would have to improve if I wanted to have a successful career with <big consultancy I shan’t name out of shame>. 'Es of now you vil be 'performance menaged. JA JA'.

I went home furious and told Mrs Tester, who said, with her usual down to earth, common sense approach, said ‘let’s go to the pub and get pissed, and tomorrow you can resign and phone that bloke who offered you a contract last week’. I did, and it’s the best decision I ever took in my working life.

The only bit missing that would make it a happy ending is for the appraiser to get a well-deserved stabbity-stab.

Thanks though for reminding me again why I contract.

At my last appraisal (ever!) I was marked only "acceptable" on communication. This was in France, and my manager, who was Russian (that won't happen again either) explained to me that he would not mark any non-native French-speaker, including himself, any better than that, regardless of how well they spoke it. Contrary to stereotype, the French themselves did not have any such problem.

[NotAllThere]

...
Year-end appraisals are crap. Your manager should be having regular one-on-one convos. during the year to discuss issues as they come up.

I got grief from my manager because I didn't have regular team meetings for my staff. I pointed out that I talked to my staff most days, so I knew what they were doing. I then imposed a regular team meeting at 2:00pm on Friday. I was commended for this as "it ensures they get back from the pub on time". What it really meant was we could stay at the pub until 3, or even 4 if it was a particularly arduous meeting...

[AlfredJPruffock]

Don't you make hell for a IT person by stuffing them into a corner and asking them to produce papers on technical ideas which they know will just be chucked in the bin.

Interesting, but I would dirve them insane by making them do weekly presentations to Human Resource Dept about softskills , team building communications etc you would have the desired resignation in less than a month.

[Cheshire Cat]

My last 2 appraisals in permiedom went something like this..

Stupid bint manager: "Well you've achieved all of your targets but you can't have a pay rise because you didn't exceed your targets"

Me: "Ok so what targets do I need to set for next year to get a pay rise then"

Stupid bint manager then agrees some new targets with me.

Next year.....

Stupid bint manager: "Well you've achieved all of your targets but you can't have a pay rise because you didn't exceed your targets"

I left to go contracting.....

You should have agreed targets that you could easily exceed, if this was the criteria for a pay rise. "I will turn in each day at 10am", "I will take no more than 15 fag breaks during the day" etc

[Sausage Surprise]

My last 2 appraisals in permiedom went something like this..

Stupid bint manager: "Well you've achieved all of your targets but you can't have a pay rise because you didn't exceed your targets"

Me: "Ok so what targets do I need to set for next year to get a pay rise then"

Stupid bint manager then agrees some new targets with me.

Next year.....

Stupid bint manager: "Well you've achieved all of your targets but you can't have a pay rise because you didn't exceed your targets"

I left to go contracting.....

[EternalOptimist]

At the last appraisal I had when I was a permie, I was accused of letting the side down by going on holiday during the acceptance tests of a major project. I’d actually arranged my holiday so as not to clash with the project planning and had worked very long days to make sure that at least the tests were prepared on time, but the project was delayed by so many months that it clashed. This was counted as an ‘unsatisfactory’ and I was informed that my salary would only be raised in line with inflation and I would have to improve if I wanted to have a successful career with <big consultancy I shan’t name out of shame>. 'Es of now you vil be 'performance menaged. JA JA'.

I went home furious and told Mrs Tester, who said, with her usual down to earth, common sense approach, said ‘let’s go to the pub and get pissed, and tomorrow you can resign and phone that bloke who offered you a contract last week’. I did, and it’s the best decision I ever took in my working life.

Sounds like SHE took the decision.
Typical tester, takes all the credit for someone elses work.


good move tho

[Mich the Tester]

Year-end appraisals are crap. Your manager should be having regular one-on-one convos. during the year to discuss issues as they come up.

[Mich the Tester]

Appraisals are the first step in the disciplinary chain.

It allows management to measure your current progress so far and set agreed new goals

as soon as you start missing those goals you may end being perfromance managed

once you are being performance managed you may as well get another job.

At the last appraisal I had when I was a permie, I was accused of letting the side down by going on holiday during the acceptance tests of a major project. I’d actually arranged my holiday so as not to clash with the project planning and had worked very long days to make sure that at least the tests were prepared on time, but the project was delayed by so many months that it clashed. This was counted as an ‘unsatisfactory’ and I was informed that my salary would only be raised in line with inflation and I would have to improve if I wanted to have a successful career with <big consultancy I shan’t name out of shame>. 'Es of now you vil be 'performance menaged. JA JA'.

I went home furious and told Mrs Tester, who said, with her usual down to earth, common sense approach, said ‘let’s go to the pub and get pissed, and tomorrow you can resign and phone that bloke who offered you a contract last week’. I did, and it’s the best decision I ever took in my working life.

[lilelvis2000]

Yep.

Its a well known variant of getting rid of people without messy legal liability - make their life a hell at work under the guise of performance managment with impossible targets etc till they head running for the Exits.

Any former HR foks on the panel care to comment ?

Don't you make hell for a IT person by stuffing them into a corner and asking them to produce papers on technical ideas which they know will just be chucked in the bin.

[lilelvis2000]

My first appraisal went okay...though the manager was quite useless but a nice guy.

My next one I didn't even see..the man was a jerk and had no clue how to talk to anyone except in a arrogant manner - except his buddies.

He passed the review on to my next manager who read it out to me. I was allowed to give a written response and my manager agreed that the previous one was crap and all my points we bang on about him.

Since then managers had to go through some quite strenuous training in soft-skills and management skills. Any company that takes technical people and just drops them into management is asking for trouble.

Year-end appraisals are crap. Your manager should be having regular one-on-one convos. during the year to discuss issues as they come up.

[AlfredJPruffock]

Appraisals are the first step in the disciplinary chain.

It allows management to measure your current progress so far and set agreed new goals

as soon as you start missing those goals you may end being perfromance managed

once you are being performance managed you may as well get another job.

Yep.

Its a well known variant of getting rid of people without messy legal liability - make their life a hell at work under the guise of performance managment with impossible targets etc till they head running for the Exits.

Any former HR foks on the panel care to comment ?

[original PM]

Appraisals are the first step in the disciplinary chain.

It allows management to measure your current progress so far and set agreed new goals

as soon as you start missing those goals you may end being perfromance managed

once you are being performance managed you may as well get another job.

[oracleslave]

I guess English must be your second language, so permit me to help...

It is actually. I have never seen it used like that. I guess I just learnt something then.

I recommend www.dictionary.com if you struggle with the meaning of words.

Thanks for the tip, I find urbandictionary more interesting though.