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Improving The Performance Review Process
Might taking into account the distractions, time wasting, obstruction, and obfuscation be a path to true meritocracy?
I’m always on the lookout for a true meritocratic company in the Grand Game of Software Engineering, primarily because no matter what any company says on their marketing blurb, blowhards at you during their interview clown parade, or writes in the employee manual under the heading “the performance review process — working for you!” they, to paraphrase the infamous Dr Gregory House, always lie.
They’re lying because the performance review process, as anyone who’s had the misfortune to suffer one well knows, is inherently flawed.
Performance reviews are also often carried out by people who don’t even know your name, let alone what you do, and if they do know you then they’re likely one of the management ranks who have little to no technical ability themselves which tosses any possible objective judgements right out of the window.
Suffice it to say that also, pay awards are, of course, made completely independently of the review process, despite what the HR propaganda and management rhetoric says.
Documents are collected, statements are taken, boxes are ticked, perfunctory ratings on arbitrary scales are pushed on dated radio buttons inside dire management…
