[Closed] Its quarterly appraisal time...Yey!

Thankfully (I think) ours were all cancelled and pushed back to the autumn in a more 'streamlined' format (god knows what that'll mean). So the stress of the annual waffle producing, thinking how to say the same thing this year as last year by changing the odd word has been lifted.

If done well they can be very useful, needs good management and buy in from the team. The latter normally comes from the former. If they are done as a tick box exercise, which is the usual, then they are a waste of time.

If you think that, and the employees think that, why not take the chance for a bit of 30 minute relationship building over a cup of tea with each team member and just fill out the form in your own?

What industry requires quarterly appraisals?

We have them yearly.... plus minus a few months!

I love appraisals, my people are the most valuable business asset that I have so hearing a true picture of how we are doing is very important to me.

If done correctly they are invaluable.

@nickc - you're their manager, you should lead by example and invest time in the process as it can be very valuable if done correctly. Flip the system on it's head, use it as a tool to empower your team. Use it as a way of getting the company to commit to their personal development etc. Show them the way.....

Had mine yesterday, usual waste of time.

If you run a good team with good communication you shouldn't need them in my opinion.

Quarterly!! WTF!!

I can only assume sales or something like that??

I'm always trying to make them better where ever I work, I've seen them be as destructive as they are constructive in the past.

I believe in working with people to set goals as a way of keeping them interested and motivated, but I don't believe in this being what everyone wants, I also don't believe in paperwork for the sake of paperwork.

My favourite destructive time was when a score of 3.9 on average across a range of assessments lead to one of my team getting a 3, I had agreed a 4, told him it would be a 4 and planned for that. My boss didn't tell me until the guy in my team got the letter, I was fuming, as was he, apparently the system was to truncate not round the score, this was literally revealed to NO ONE before though. I hated both the job and the HR numpty I worked with, she'd ask me to fit the team to a bell curve, so I'd ask if she wanted to me recruit for an average team, she just didn't get it. I had an excellent team at the time and wanted to reward them all equally and appropriately.

Use it as a way of getting the company to commit to their personal development etc

I think that this points to the issue a lot of people have with appraisals; they don't want to 'develop', they want to come in, do their job, go home, and get paid at the end of the month.

If you think that, and the employees think that...

This is what I do. I'm lucky in that I have (in the large part) team members who are extremely focussed, task oriented, driven and intelligent. The form we "have" to use is vague, couched in "management speak" and runs the risk of being dismissed by them. It annoys me that my parts of the otherwise decent organisation we work for can't be a bit more flexible.

What industry requires quarterly appraisals?

And additional monthly 1-1...to boot.

Everyone hates it, and everyone in every organisation hates them

Is it bad I like them, or rather I value them? I had them Quarterly or at least twice yearly everywhere I worked until the current place. We're a lot less formal here (I say here, I haven't actually been to work in 7 weeks), for the first few years I had a monthly target, but I don't now, it's just aligned with the business performance.

I mean when was the last time your Boss said, "you're doing really well, keep it up"? Or "You need to pull your finger out!" How do you know, and more importantly how do you know when it's time to renegotiate your salary?

I miss performance related pay. I cringe every time someone talks about equal pay, it just seems a bit defeatist.

They might be linked to bonuses though.

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Quarterly!! WTF!!

I can only assume sales or something like that??

Nope, engineering. HR director brought in the system that they implemented at their last company (that was scrapped once they left!).

@ElShalimo - Do you work in HR??!

i have always hated appraisals.

If I want to talk to my boss, or he wants to talk to me, we do so. There's no need to wait for a formal once a year (quarter) forced meeting. If I want training, I ask. If there's something wrong, he tells me.

Easier for us as it's a very small team, where we all work better by ourselves just getting on with it. The manager does have another team, who, shall we say, need a little more hand-holding and day-to-day management

What industry requires quarterly appraisals?

Just this. We are such a short-term focussed country. Where are the mid to long term plans?

I consider them to be a complete waste of time and actually destructive.

One senior post I had I was supposed to do 3 monthly appraisals on all new staff and annual on the rest. Each appraisal was supposed to be 2-3 hours work. ( Prep, appraisal, debrief) with 30 staff reporting to me 1/3 of them new thats a minimum of 120 hours work for me. 6% of my annual working time.

I told my line manager I would wait until they had done my appraisal so I could see how the system works before I did any of the staff that reported to me. ~they never did mine so I never did any.

I am supposed to get annual appraisals working in the NHS. I have never had one.

We've moved to quarterly and they work so much better - it's a proper conversation about how they feel they are doing, what they want (even if that's just to do the hours and get paid) and some behaviour stuff which is related to what they need to get done. No crap about organisational values, no annual objectives that were sidelined the week after you wrote them. As above, my team are the most important thing for delivering the work we need to do.

Nope, engineering

Christ, I'm in Civil Engineering and I've never heard of anything but annual appraisals. Apart from something that comes up in an annual appraisal that might need looking at again in 6 months to see how it's going...

It's total toss wherever I've worked.

In various different guises it has been:

1. A method of assigning you unachievable goals which invariably never get done because of all the other regular and ad hoc shit takes up all of your work time +20%. At the end of the appraisal period there is a bit of tut-tutting for appearances sake and then it is all forgotten about until the company either frees up some of your time or gets someone else in to do it.

2. A method of assigning you unachievable goals so they can try some kind of performance management way of getting you out.

3. A chit chat about what was on telly last night and an exercise in filling in a few boxes with "I suppose we could say making your tea round is 'Contributing Fully and Actively to the Team Environment'" and "what shall we put for 'continuous improvement'? Adding biscuits to your tea round on a Friday?"

I have not had an appraisal at my place in 3+ years. My boss doesn't seem to want to, so I don't either. It will make life a lot easier if it ever did come to them trying to give me the elbow on concocted 'performance' issues as I don't formally know what I am being specifically appraised against.

I think that this points to the issue a lot of people have with appraisals; they don’t want to ‘develop’, they want to come in, do their job, go home, and get paid at the end of the month.

My old, old Boss used to say he loved "Plodders" they're great employees. As you say they come in every day, do what's required of them and go home again. They've usually got years of experience of doing the same thing, they make great trainers and sometimes in fact a lot of times you need a safe pair of hands.

Our old appraisal system was fair (IMHO) and well suited to that - you had a pretty basic set of KPIs for the role you had, if you met them you got you got a hearty handshake, a sincere thank you for your efforts, job security and a modest bonus based on the performance of the company (this was a bank, everyone got some kind of bonus).

If you exceeded the KPIs you got bigger bonuses and bigger pay rises and the road maps to promotion were clear and fair, there was no ambiguity or favouritism you met the requirements and you were eligible for the next opening. You might have to have a 15 min interview if you happened to get there at the same time as someone else.

It was probably the most diverse workplace I've ever worked in.

To be fair, I think most people want a clear steer on "what do you expect me to do" and "how well am I doing it?".

The problem with many organisations (and, generally, the bigger they are the worse it gets) is that this turns into an absolute sodding industry of feedback gathering, objective setting, goal alignment, documentation, monthly 1-1s, quarterly approisals, half-yearly appraisals, annual appraisals, at the end of which the upshot is often "well done, you got a 'meets expectations', here's your 1% pay rise and [if you're very lucky] 2% bonus".

it’s a proper conversation about how they feel they are doing, what they want (even if that’s just to do the hours and get paid) and some behaviour stuff which is related to what they need to get done. No crap about organisational values, no annual objectives that were sidelined the week after you wrote them.

This is generally all that's needed.

I thought their main purpose was to exist in case needed for a round of redundancies.

Difficult to build capability/competence in to redundancy criteria without something to back it up.

"We ranked you really low because you're manager thinks you're a ****" is less watertight than "Your score from the last 3 years of appraisals was X".

Ours are alright. We set goals (between us and boss), and then at the end of the period we discuss if we met the goals or not, and what company or individual can do to help that happen next time. They then tell you if they expect more from you or not.

I'm waiting for my first appraisal after the first 3 months with my employer. I've been there 24 years so I'm beginning to think they may have forgotten.

Wow. I feel lucky compared to a lot of the negativity above.
I have 2 formal appraisals a year, and the option of Additional 2 if I want them. I usually have the additional 2 as I find them really useful.

I enjoy them and find them to be a useful way to spend time.
Everyone else seems to feel the same and most people opt for quarterly.

@eskay - Christ No!!

I try to make them a positive experience for my team and not just a box-ticking exercise. I've had some awful managers over the years so I know what "not to do". Doesn't make me perfect but I want to treat my staff correctly and use the system to help them. I put more emphasis on their personal development objectives (chosen by them) than the mundane operational objectives (chosen together).

The tool which you use to record the conversation is irrelevant. The key thing is that you have the conversation and do it well. The problem is that most people just go through it as a box-ticking exercise and there's no value in that for either party.

One of the problems with a lot of people on STW is that most people are self-declared experts at everything so being questioned, or asked to have an adult discussion, will not go down well, I mean, how could you possibly be wrong? There isn't anything left to learn as you know it all already.....FFS

part of the issue is my boss doesn't understand what I do. He's been drafted in from another team, and is more suited over there

I didn't go for the team leadership role, mostly due to the issue of looking after others; the amount of time you have to devote to others appraisals, and all basically for a slightly inflated job title.

I gave up team leadership/manager-ship almost 20 years ago now. I prefer to be the lowest of the low, yet actually be integral to the running of the firm. Kind of like a blind side flanker in rugby 🙂

As my SVP said, if he doesn't hear anything from me, he knows everything is working well. He knows it's going badly when I call him...fortunately he is on the same wave length as me.

I thought their main purpose was to exist in case needed for a round of redundancies.

Basically yes. It is all dressed up as aspirational fluff, but really it is to assist with performance managing and redundancy and arse covering.

For example, if my employer chose to give me the chop right now, they would be in for a rough ride. I have not had an appraisal for three years, there have not been pieces of paper with my signature on them committing me to anything. So, if they did want to 'performance manage' me out I would make it very clear from the off that this would have to be done from the time of them telling me about it as time zero. Nothing that has happened to date will have suggested I am falling short. Far from it, in fact.

So they would be in a situation where I would have to be set (and I would have to sign up to) weekly goals and mini appraisals as a minimum. Administering that would be a nightmare. So you basically arrive back at:

"You want to performance manage me out, but you will have to do it by the book and it is going to be painful. Redundancy would be worse. So make me an offer".

I am also in the happy situation that I know what the 'going rate' for 'quietly disappearing' is at my place....

I love appraisals, my people are the most valuable business asset that I have so hearing a true picture of how we are doing is very important to me.

You are my company and I claim my $5.

Currently, we ahem quarterly and they are a waste of time.   My biggest 3 issues in March:

a) I asked for a business mentor, I've been waiting 2 years already (any external offers?)

b) I discussed= micro management issues and wrote down the concern and his actions in the software, theres a reversion to type already

c) Help with time management, apparently is my problem to manage.

Although I'm talking the piss in my quote ^^, my management style is "mentor manager", and when I managed and performed these reviews I took the opportunity to discover the actions I could perform to help my team become more productive and happier at work, specifically requesting their feedback on that - I saw it as my role to ensure they could do the job I needed them to do, and grow their careers to the best of their ability.