Hello, I'm posting this question here because I want responses from engineers, so please don't be offended. I want to know what your thoughts are concerning Performance Appraisals at your company, are they beneficial, how are they conducted, and what is the best way go give performance appraisals?
Where I work, the manager brings you into their office, starts a series of short questions concerning your family and other things not relating to your job and then finally gives you a pat on the back and says, good job. Not much is really discussed and therefore not really useful.
The "performance appraisal" is a purely formal game. The only purpose of it is to protect the company from lawsuits. If someone who was let go is considering himself offended and brings the case to the court, then the company will need something in writing to prove their point.
While I was at Nortel 8-15 years ago they carried out performance reviews which I have since realised were more useful than most people gave credit for. There were objectives set in agreement with your team leader that could be used to justify training etc. There was also a fairly honest apprisal of your performance against last years targets etc.
The targets and objectives were set as much by your own character assesment as your bosses, these had to be agreed.
Now, working for myself I know I should be carrying out the same exercise for myself (but never seem to have the time).
When I had to conduct my first ones I learned from a book: William S.Swan "How to do Superior performance Appraisals
Helped me quite a bit and the engineers I gave appraisals later said they liked the style. Appraisals can be very helpful for the career of the person being appraised. If they are done right.
I've worked both sides of the desk since about 1974 when I first became a hiring manager. In organizations larger than a few dozen people, especially those with HR departments, the formal process is necessary to organize and document skill sets and salary administration in a uniform way.
Many people have a hard time tooting their own horn, and a good reciprocol review cycle gives the employee a clear time to intiate discussion about new/added responsibilities, promotion goals, and salary goals.
Likewise, sometimes marginal performance isn't worth the manager taking you aside and telling you to pull your own weight (or else), but at the review cycle, it's much easier to open the employee up and find out what is causing the weak performance. Be it training, home problems, lack of motivation, lack of respect inside the team, lack of guidance, etc ... all things easier discussed when this process is administered well. The first few places I was a manger, there was zero traning for what was expected, or the gains that could be made organizational if this was done well ... certainly better training can help both side of the desk.
Stresses outside of work, affect employee productivity big time. A MH checkup at review is more than useful to understand what is going on in your life that affects your work. I'd say your manager is on the ball, and if anything was wrong, you certainly would have heard about it.
It's always a good idea to take your boss to lunch, and talk about the review process from both sides of the desk. You will probably be there sooner than you expect, and having that discussion, can sometimes be a key opening discussion that you are THINKING about your job, and where your advancment will take you.
Good point, Luhan. In the big company, there is a salary schedule: how much is getting paid to a person in this position. There is actually no way for them to give any raise.
Also this is how the loafers from HR are making themselves look very useful.
Glowing perfomance reviews are your collaterial for a promotion. Stock options are way far over rated. In 19 out of 20 small to mid-sized companies they are worthless, and maybe worth less than your option price when you can finally cash them out. In larger companies, they might actually be worth something, or a golden handcuff that stops you from advancing faster by changing jobs. Stocks are gambling, and unless you are on top of the market, or extremely lucky, I'd not bet on them even being worth the overtime you might spend to justify them.
Raises in almost every company are there for those that show steady improvement in skills at all levels, a strong work ethic, and a stronger interest in being successful and making the company successful. For those companies where this is not true, I'd change jobs, unless you have decided this a comfortable retirement job, AND you have some faith they will let you stay to retirement. Even then, I'd change jobs, because I HATE the lack of challenge in my job.
Can be, but often aren't. I've seen the existence of stock options used as an excuse for keeping salaries low ("You'll get rich on the options!"). All of my Intel options (seven years worth) are underwater, most by a large enough margin that's there's little hope that they'll be worth anything before they expire.
The story was similar at my previous company, and it was always amusing that every time options were granted the stock price went down a notch. So the options were never worth anything and had an effect sort of the opposite of incentive (i.e., demoralizing). Once every few years they'd restructure all the worthless options in order to get some incentive back, and the stock would just drop further to negate the new structure. It was comical once you got past the sadness. ;)
So I've got about sixteen years of "stock option incentives" that have essentially cost me money. :(
Eric Jacobsen Minister of Algorithms, Intel Corp. My opinions may not be Intel's opinions.
My previous company defined "pillars" (personal, technical, career, business ...), career paths (technical, delivery management, project management...) and career levels (1=grad ... 7=MD), and published a document which attempted to define the essence of how a person at level X on path Y behaves in respect of pillar Z. Obviously, the language was a bit vague and hand-wavey in places - but what's the alternative? It's not easy to implement something that's fair and consistent across a company employing thousands worldwide.
Staff commented on their own performance against pillars, and agreed objectives. Feedback was received from project managers for whom staff had worked during the year. The pillars provided a framework for the questionnaires which staff and managers had to fill-in. A lot was captured in writing. Everyone had a staff manager with whom all this was reviewed. The staff manager was ultimately the person who scored your performance.
It's easy to be cynical on encountering the sort of management-speak in which these things are couched, or else get frustrated - especially if you're an engineer - about the apparent vagueness of the questions, but I always managed to think of something to put in every box eventually!
Then what is the alternative to HR, ( dont ask me, I havent had a "job" in almost 10 years), and I've never worked for a company that had a "modern" HR dept. In those days they where called " personnel" deparments, much more human
I've worked for a couple of places that were deliberately kept too small - below 250 employees - to support a personnel department. The managers and their secretaries had to do the necessary scut-work. It seemd to work out.
My experience of personnel departments, both as a job interviewer and as a job interviewee, was that they ranged from the useless to the obstructive.
Most of them thought that they had the right and duty to filter candidates for engineering jobs, and they reliably let through totally unsuitable candidates, and tried to block people whom we eventually hired. None of them had the vaguest idea what a "good" engineering CV looked like, but the "good" ones were at least aware of their inadequacy.
Stock options are what you get when a company is destined to fail ;-)
Now-a-days, when someone walks in the door and offers me a percentage, I SHOW them the door ;-)
...Jim Thompson
-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |
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| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Yep. Once upon a time I had a bundle of options should I join Mattel Toy Co.
Went up like a rocket until they were exercisable, then fell to worthless :-(
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
I meant small companies where you as an employee can see what's going on and can actually have an impact. That has paid off well for me. Then I invested a little in Intel. Big mistake, because they began making lots of mistakes after that IMHO. A mono-culture isn't going to work, wether that's in ag or in electronics yet they seem to be going there. Oh well, so we are in the same boat. My stocks are under water as much as your options :-(
Sometimes I dream I could be at the helm at a company like Intel or Infineon, just for a year, and turn a few things around. Intel had some dynamite products like programmable logic etc. Most of the time just when it began to work they ditched it.
Probably via dilution. Maybe they overdid it a wee bit.
That would be the time to start looking for "other ventures". Either the products are dull or management is.
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