Ā #PerformanceReview #ManagerIssues #OfficePolitics
Hey everyone, let’s talk about performance reviews and office politics! šš¼
So, my manager dropped a bombshell on me recently. He said that our office caps our performance review ratings at a certain number because consistently meeting expectations is the expectation. š¤ But here’s the kicker – I know for a fact that some of my colleagues have been given higher ratings. š
I can’t help but feel like my manager is using this as another way to assert his power over me. He’s been called out in the past for being a bad manager, so I’ve been bending over backwards to prove myself for the past year. And now this?
I’m seriously considering bringing this up to the team and expressing my disappointment that our ratings are capped. It’s demotivating and frankly, it feels unfair. Should I do it and call out my manager for his dishonesty? š¤š
Any advice or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated! I’m fuming and could really use some guidance on how to handle this situation. Let’s help each other out and navigate through these office politics together! šŖš¼š¤
All ratings are capped. I assume you mean stack ranked. If your manager doesnāt support your advancement, your career is effectively flatlining.
Act accordingly.
My company does this too, but the last round of reviews they also capped merit increases. Despite saying they are profitable every year.
It sounds like your boss has plateaued as a manager. Talk to your fellow employees, they might feel the same way.
My experience has been there is a pool available. Most people are in the middle. Some are bad and some are good.
The funds assume everyone is in the middle. If you are a low performer, you add to everyone else. If you are exceptional, youāll take away from others.
If all works out well, the middle people stay in the middle and the high performers are essentially paid by the low performers.
My job does similar, where āgreatā is a 3 out of 5 stars and no one ever gets a 5 star rating. Then why have it go all the way up to five stars?? It doesnāt make sense
Heās not a liar as much as youād love to publicly shame them. Capping performance is normal, all companies do this to some extent it can even vary by team within the same company There is one bucket of money budgeted for all performance bonuses for the whole company – usually funded based on some factor of the company profits. If one year the company wasnāt profitable or less profitable, that bucket of money would be smaller. Each manager is allocated a set number of above-at-and below ratings tied to bonus amounts; so not everybody can get 100%. You can be ādisappointedā all you want Itās not gonna change anything. This is why itās very important to understand what specifically and exactly constitutes āaboveā in a performance rating because just āConsistently meeting expectationsā is the minimum expectation, itās how you keep your job -no participation, awards for adulting.
One thing I learned early on is that performance review processes are bullshit.
Self rating: Exceeded all of my performance goals by 20% or moreā¦I rate myself Exceeds Expectations.
Manager during one on one review. Yeah yeah all of thatās great, but you were 5 minutes late getting back from lunch on the 3rd Thursday in March, so the best I can do here is Meets.
At my company, there is ārecommended percentā of employees that can be ranked as exceeding expectation.
it goes by VP level.
We are pushed to rank ~80% of employees as meets expectations and only 15% as exceeding. We are also encouraged to rank 5-7% as needs improvement (NI). Itās basically an act of god to earn Top Performer.
Once we rate within our own teams, it gets rolled up. This is called calibration. So letās say that I thought I had 3 of 15 employees that I think exceeded expectations. I am already over the %. But also my VP has to meet the recommended %s in the roll up for her teams. So if any other leaders have stronger cases, some of my exceeds might get knocked down to meets.
It is awful because we often have to label someone as meets when it could be easily argued that they exceed. The absolute worst is when we have to decide who the NIs are. Some years this is more strongly enforced than others.
Now as to whyā¦all of this comes down to budgeting. We get bonuses based on your rating. If a team has too many performers above the mid point, it takes away from others.
I write all that to say, thereās a good likelihood your boss isnāt a liar.
But consistently meeting expectations is indeed the expectation. That’s literally the bare minimum to keep one’s job.
They do this everywhere. You just have to stand out. You donāt have to perform, but you have to get yourself in a high visibility position where your performance is seen, across the board. So, when you get a high rating and promotion, everyone agrees.
It is everywhere. It used to make me so mad at review time. I’d send my thoughts on scores to my boss, he would send it to HR and we both get copied on their response. Almost every one of my ratings would be bumped down 1 spot.
So I then had to write the review to match the damn new score. It’s difficult to write a high performance person a lower score than they deserve, and then have to bit my tongue while giving it to them.
Do what you feel is right. I would probably approach it by going to HR or big bosses and ask how the company is doing? Have we been meeting the goals for the year. That can also impact review time.
Apparently the bullshit is uncapped.
Perhaps the most infuriating thing for me in middle management was having to rate employees based on the amount I was budgeted to distribute in raises for the year. I didn’t want to rate people lower than their performance to bring their raise to match the budget. I would have rather said ‘you did great work but I just don’t have enough in the budget to give you more’.
It very well might be true. If rankings are on a 1-4 scale with 4 being the highest, and salary increases are awarded based on your rating, managers are often limited to how many 4s can be doled out across the department. If you are not one of the favorites, you should get out or your career there will flatline.
My company only allows 1 exceeds expectations per department. You’re better off finding a promotion than actually hitting that exceeds expectations. Everyone else who gets meets expectations gets the baseline raise that the company sets for everyone. If you get a doesn’t meet then you’re going to be laid off during the next round.
Welcome to corporate America.
You’re a shitty employee. Deal with it.
as a manager iāll be candid here. long term, i look for people who are middling performers and go above in beyond in loyalty, obedience, and showing deference to me and the companyās other leaders. good cultural fit and enthusiasm for the company are also pluses.
if youāre trying to stand out by producing more and better work product than everyone else, you start to make the type of employee i described as my ideal look bad, and you force my hand in that i have to either lie on your review, or give you a bigger raise than everyone else. this isnāt good for team cohesion and culture. if you really want to get ahead and rise the ranks, focus on being the employee i described, and if you want to move into leadership, focus on influencing your peers to be that kind of employee too.
Some managers and/or companies will do what they can to to stick it to you, sadly.
Long ago in the late 90’s as a young supervisor in an office in a large manufacturing plant, I had to give annual reviews to those who reported to me and the company sent us a spreadsheet stating that they were only going to spend so much on raises. So, if I gave Sue a 4% increase, it automatically deducted the dollars in the spreadsheet they gave me when I typed in her raise.
I could give an employee more but that means I had to give others less as I only had so much money to allocate to those who worked for me, period.
Then, a few days later the VP came and shook my hand and congratulated me on my 12% increase they had given to me when the company was capped at giving 4% increases overall.
Why did they give me a 12% increase that year? Because it got my salary up the level where they no longer had to pay me overtime. I “lost” about $6,000 that year or I would have had I stayed there. I left about 4 months later after that, because of that.
I told my boss they could have lowered my salary by 3% and I still would have made more money with the overtime than I was going to make with my 12% increase.
And they gave me a 12% increase because that’s what it took to get me to the level where they didn’t have to pay me overtime anymore.
Sorry OP, many companies and managers will screw you over. It’s a sad part of corporate life.
Yeah so does every job. Statistically you can’t all be “above average”.
High rankings are for people who will be getting promoted. Low rankings are for people who will be getting fired.
Ah yes, my team has absorbed several positions and roles and meets expectations. Guess Iām doing the bare minimum from here on out.