Time for your performance review

I received my performance review the other day at the company where I work. The annual exercise makes me, like everyone else, pretty uncomfortable. If I don’t care for the evaluative nature of statements like “that’s a nice haircut,” you can imagine how I feel about a session that appraises my fundamental value as a contributing member of the global community. Especially in this economy.

Overall, though, I’d say the meeting went about as well as could be anticipated. On a scale descending from the top-most “exceeds expectations”, down to “meets expectations”, then to “needs improvement”, then to “you suck”, I’d probably rate the session with my supervisor as “meets expectations”.

Unfortunately, that may not be saying much, considering I had pretty low expectations going in. I’ve been receiving what are supposed to be annual evaluations for quite a few years now and, like most American workers who describe them as demeaning, demoralizing and a huge waste of time, I have mixed feelings on the subject. On the one hand, I recognize the need for the hectic rat race to pause momentarily so that a thoughtful discussion of how we work can take place between manager and managee (my spellcheck suggests I use “mangy” or “manatee” here and, now that I think of it, I have felt like a flea-bitten sea cow at work recently). And by the same token, I understand that it provides a proper context for the awarding of merit raises, the value of which you can’t argue with, if we got them. But on the other hand, it’s hard not to resent having a non-deity like my supervisor sitting in judgment on me.

I began preparing for my most recent review in April, when I realized the 2007 year-end appraisal was now about four months past-due and therefore imminent. I scribbled a few notes about what I considered my major accomplishments – trips overseas to train our offshore teams, membership on a quality improvement committee, never coming to work armed – and put them in my shirt pocket to carry around with me. We used to be able to tell approximately when the review session was coming because we’d be asked to formally write up any input we cared to offer, but like other fads in the world of human resources, this practice was abandoned faster than a colicky infant in Nebraska. I was proud to consider myself more prepared than most of my co-workers, who usually just wait for the manager’s window blinds to close to recall something good they’ve done lately.

Before this self-review portion was dropped, the company experimented briefly with something called the “360 review”, where coworkers above, below and on the same level with you were asked to provide input on the evaluation. Though you can easily imagine the theoretical value of giving equal weight to the perceptions of all who interact with you, this turned out to be about as morale-building as the self-criticism of Soviet indoctrination camps. Hearing that your organizational and communication skills failed to impress the garbage-collection guy was truly crushing.

By the time my one-on-one session did happen on Friday, I had basically lost interest in making any positive case for myself and was prepared to offer a “whatever” if the newest review form had a place for one. I didn’t think I’d do especially well, since our workload has been so slow lately that it’s hard to keep up any real enthusiasm for productivity. But I had forgotten that this was the 2007 review, not the 2008 one, so my accomplishments harked back to those long-ago days when we did something.

That being the case, I was pleased to see that I had received a “strategic supplier” designation in all categories except for safety, where I was judged “capable”. (Apparently, being a strategic supplier is a desired thing, and capable is not as good but not necessarily bad, since your performance is judged on a safe/not-safe dichotomy and, since I didn’t get killed on the job, I passed.) The categories where I received the “SS” included quality of work, quantity of work, initiative, technical competence, working with others, and attendance. The only better grade I could’ve received was something called “pinnacle player” and, when I asked a while back why I didn’t get any of these despite what I considered an outstanding year, I was told these were reserved for only the most exceptional employees, on the level, say, of a returning messiah or an Oprah.

A key part of any performance review, of course, is a fair and open discussion of what the employee can do in the area of skill improvement. Even the best worker can stand to do a better job in some aspect of his or her work, and I understand the importance of continuous improvement (at least as an impressive corporate buzzword). My development plan called for obvious things like “monitoring to ensure you are within established guidelines for attendance”, which I think has something to do with showing up on a regular basis, but I was also asked to make sure that my productivity rate was within the goal of 3.2%. I’d be happy to strive for this goal if (a) I knew what the hell it was, and (b) 3.2% of what? Unfortunately, the review time expired before I could summon the curiosity to ask the question. (The end of my shift had arrived and exceptions to the no-overtime part of our current cost-containment measures did not include discussing productivity). I can only hope that whatever that metric is, I come in at no worse than 3.1%, or no worse than 3.3%, whichever is more fitting of a strategic supplier.

Next year, if the economy continues as it is, I imagine the ratings might be on a two-point scale, something like “you still have a job” or “here’s your severance package”.