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If you work at a factory and are paid to assemble X widgets per hour between the hours of 9:00 to 5:00, then yes, it wouldn't be stressful to write a review that justifies your continued employment.
In a lot of white collar fields, however, it's a lot more difficult because your job title has 12 different duties that are each hard to measure quantitatively.
Plus, because you're asked to write, and are also given about yourself, detailed critiques of your performance compared to last quarter's performance, it amounts to creating this "autobiography" about yourself that has 20 chapters over 5 years. There's even an expectation that you have low-performing quarters (I was told this at my job). So, if you feel you are objectively performing at 110% every quarter, you or your manager will feel obligated to understate your performance once in a while so as to make your performance history more "realistic" and give you a chance the following quarter to write about your amazing "recovery."
Plus, when performance reviews are so frequent, it motivates employees to try and always be in the "spotlight," which may detract from actual productivity. For example, at an engineering job, you may go overboard in creating a fancy Powerpoint that outlines the new feature you engineered to show at a weekly demo with upper management, rather than spending time moving on to creating new features.
It's really a shell game.
Maybe if they are frequent but our reviews are once a year to determine if you are eligible for bonuses.
You folks are too emotionally connected to the common machinations of the American workplace.
Exactly. Simply do your job, get paid, and go home. When you work for others, expect to get fired every now and then, and prepare accordingly. It may be your fault, or not. Sometimes you just get a manager who doesn't like you and pushes you out, and there's nothing you can do about it. That's life and it's not fair. Don't take it personally.
Alternatively, you can try to find a way to start your own gig, but be aware of the monumental risks involved with that, such as losing everything.
Amazing coincidence....my company did annuals for a long time...then went to twice a year...now we are supposed to talk with our manager EVERY MONTH! I don't know yet the degree to which it will be formal and documented but that is CRAZY.
In the good ole days they were called "annual performance reviews," but the last 2 companies I've worked for (both tech companies) did quarterly performance reviews. Yes, that means 4 times per year.
On top of that, there are other performance reviews in disguise, such as biweekly one-on-ones with your manager, or random times that your manager sends an email to your team telling everyone to send him a list of 2 things you accomplished over the last month and 1 thing you could improve on. Stuff like that.
Gets very tedious and stressful having to constantly self-reflect and justify your salary. Have any of your experienced this?
Mo one says you have to work for them if somethinh like performance reviews and one on ones bother you
Same here. These reviews are dumb and serve no purpose (other than appeasing HR, I guess).
My company also does midyear and annual reviews. They are a ridiculous task that nobody wants anything to do with, including management. However, they are what they are and we snap to attention when the time comes every six months. Ugh...
At my current employer, HR changed the cycle to make performance reviews coincide with the fiscal year. Rather than doing two reviews within the same calendar year, they just extended the "year" to 16 months. So the last review period for everyone was 16 months long.
In my department, the review for my team was done by the co-manager who works remotely and who has been in the office exactly one day since January of this year, rather than the on-site manager who sees us every day. I haven't discussed that with my coworkers, but I can't imagine they were too thrilled about it.
At my current employer, HR changed the cycle to make performance reviews coincide with the fiscal year. Rather than doing two reviews within the same calendar year, they just extended the "year" to 16 months. So the last review period for everyone was 16 months long.
In my department, the review for my team was done by the co-manager who works remotely and who has been in the office exactly one day since January of this year, rather than the on-site manager who sees us every day. I haven't discussed that with my coworkers, but I can't imagine they were too thrilled about it.
That's how it is at my job and now the reviews is at the beginning of the fiscal year which is every August.
Speaking as a manager, trust me everyone is always under review. They just don't know it.
Sure - we all get that - but I don't like listing out all my projects multiple times a year and writing pages making a case for myself that ends up getting shot down anyway.
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