Your Performance Review Isn’t Fair
Your performance review is not about how well you served your customers, increased profits, reduced costs, expanded the business, or improved employee morale.
Your performance review is not fair whether it is positive or negative, whether you want to believe it is 100% true or 100% false, and whether you like or loathe your manager.
Your performance review reflects how well you served the department’s objectives.
Perhaps the objectives are clearly defined and understood. Book X amount of sales in new business; Y amount in renewals. Seems non-subjective. What’s the problem?
So many.
So many problems.
For example:
1) Employee A exceeds the sales goals. She should get an excellent review, no? But she doesn’t, because the review process allows for subjective feedback in addition to the objective numbers, and her manager writes in her review that she is not a team player, has low long-term prospects to grow in the company, and lacks initiative.
2) Employee B does not meet the sales goals. He should get a below average review, yes? No, he gets a glowing review. His manager notes in his review that there were unusual circumstances that prevented him from achieving the goals. The economy slowed sales. And, this employee is a positive contributor to the team and deserves an above average review.
3) Employee C does not meet the sales goals. He notes in his self-evaluation that his top customer was restructuring and unexpectedly froze large purchases for the current year. However, he proposed a set of products that would help the customer save significant costs through efficiency, and the customer committed to a purchase that would set a new record in next quota period, plus sustain sales for years to come. So this employee missed his current year goals in order to do the right thing for the customer and for his employer in future years. He should get a great review for doing the right thing for the business, right? No. His manager gave him a poor performance review for not meeting current goals.
These employees are just as likely to report to the same manager as they are to three different managers in the same department, or different managers in different parts of the company.
Disconnect your self-image and self-worth from what your manager writes on your performance review. That document might matter in terms of the bonus or raise you get, or whether you get promoted or are being pushed to leave the organization. However, it isn’t fair, so don’t let it mean more to you than what it is: a tool in the game you signed up for when you accepted this job.
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