If you’re a manager, you’ve probably been pestered by HR already several times about completing the year’s performance reviews. And more likely than not, you’ve not completed them — come back to it in January, right?
If you have a manager, when did you last actually get a performance review? Did it reflect your work? Did you feel it was truthful? If so, consider yourself lucky, I guess. I’ve had those managers, and they were wonderful — even when the review wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
But I’m here to say that annual performance reviews are a waste of everyone’s time. Biannual, the same. They’re management theater of the worst kind. If they’re done to allocate promotions, raises or bonuses, they’re probably not looking at what develops the person as a contributor to the company. If they’re done to allocate “performance improvement plans”, that is, a way to drive people out of the company, they’re a source of stress and bad feelings. And if they’re done to improve the individuals and the teams, they’re way, way too infrequent.
The way to give actionable performance feedback is to do it all the time.
That thing that shipped last month? Great work, here’s how it as worked out, this is what still could be better. But most importantly, yes, I did notice your contribution to it.
That thing you did last week to help your team? Thank you. Both big and small actions matter. People who spread help around are what makes teams great. I will remember.
That situation this morning? Yeah, I get what you were thinking, but here’s what happened as a reaction to your reaction. It’s not contributing to the goal of the company. What can you do better next time?
It’s a lot of work for the manager to keep up to date on things to be able to give timely feedback, and unfortunately many companies are organized so that the manager doesn’t see their subordinates frequently enough to be able to notice. And that’s where you can help your manager by keeping some notes yourself.
The best relationships I’ve had, both ways, have involved a 20–30 minute 1-on-1 every other week or so, where both of us have shared notes on what’s happening and what has been learned in the preceding period. If you have a good relationship, perhaps you can even have a shared timeline of those notes. But under no circumstances share those notes verbatim with anyone else. 1-on-1 is sacred.
What’s your best perf review or feedback experience?
