[ghettoimp]

I've been at $megacorp for a few years. We just completed yet another formal, annual review. It would be easy for me to look at the process and say it is needlessly structured, time consuming, and has never had any surprises.

That said, I once worked for many years at a small company with no formal review process at all. At this place, there was practically no communication from upper management about how they thought you were doing, whether they understood or valued your work, what they wanted you to focus on, etc. After years of this, I left feeling rather bitter and unappreciated.

For all its flaws, the review process at forces a conversation where you get to summarize to higher management what you have accomplished and why it is important. Peer-review at least gives you a chance to call out outstanding work from your co-workers. And the review itself at least gives you a venue to hear what management thinks of what you have done.

Anyway, I'd do a lot differently now, if I were back at the old place. But on the whole, I think the review process is actually a good thing.

[BeetleB]

My very cynical experience:

> For all its flaws, the review process at forces a conversation where you get to summarize to higher management what you have accomplished and why it is important.

In my experience, they've decided it already and don't really care what you put down - unless they want you to get a promotion and then they will care as they need buy-in from others. Particularly, if they want to screw you over, then it doesn't matter what you've written (i.e. even if you put in great accomplishments you can still get a poor rating).

> Peer-review at least gives you a chance to call out outstanding work from your co-workers.

Same thing here. We used to require naming 3 people to give peer feedback. When they want to screw someone, the manager would actively seek out negative reviews to support his case - regardless of whoever you picked.

> And the review itself at least gives you a venue to hear what management thinks of what you have done.

I can agree with this - although where I worked they'll let you know throughout the year. I did have one manager who was very reluctant to give negative feedback, though, so I suppose this benefits the employee where the manager is at least forced to formally give you negative feedback.

Processes are good in general, but useless if the system doesn't value it. If the manager can actively go and solicit feedback from folks you didn't nominate, then why waste my time and the time of the people I did nominate?

I cheered when my company stopped doing annual reviews.

[edgefield0]

Thanks for this comment. Can you please share more details on how the process is structured at your company?

[ghettoimp]

Sure -- once per year:

- Write up self review. 1-2 pages to highlight what you worked on and accomplished, who you helped, why it matters. Score yourself on various dimensions of how good of a job you are doing (working with others, getting stuff done, etc.)

- Nominate 3-4 people to give you peer reviews. Best to pick people who can speak to your work, ideally with some folks from outside your particular group, and ideally with some seniority.

- Managers decide who to ask for peer review about whom. You'll get asked by various managers for feedback about their reports. Write and submit this feedback -- could be as short as a paragraph, more typically 2 or 3 paragraphs: what did you work on with them, what did they do achieve, what could have gone better? I've probably given feedback for 5-10 people on average.

- Manager synthesizes all of this into a report, score you on the same dimensions.

- Manager meets with you, gives you their report, goes over it with you. There's a lot to this meeting. It's a review of how they see your work, a comparison of your self-scores and their scores to get on the same page, a discussion of noteworthy feedback from others (positive and negative), a chance to defend yourself against any negative feedback, and a discussion of ideas for addressing any concerns. Typically there is also a lot of goal-setting for the upcoming year, and more generally a discussion of how things are going, how happy you are, and so on.

- Formally acknowledge that you discussed the report with your manager (checkbox in some system). This also gives you a chance to formally comment on the report, I imagine in case of some dispute.

- Followup meeting, some time later, deals with compensation adjustments, promotions, etc. This is kept separate from the review itself.

Effort level has been perhaps 2-3 days per year for writing up all the reviews. I'm sure it's worse for managers.

[condercet]

I had the displeasure of working for a company that had a similar review system, but it was quarterly rather than annual. Total nightmare.

[edgefield0]

Thanks for this detail. Was there any goal setting at the start of the review period so you understood what you were going to be evaluated against?

[ghettoimp]

The dimensions that you are scored on are fixed ahead of time and haven't changed in years.

The individual goals are set in this year's review, evaluated in next year's review.

[temikus]

Not the OP but sounds like Google’s “Perf” process. You can take a search through HN and get a couple of accounts. Generally; you write how well you did, then you get a couple of peers to confirm it and give you feedback. Then your manager works with a bunch of other managers to “calibrate” to make sure their view of the world is not skewed (think you did poorly but you actually did well and vice-versa). Then you receive a rating based on that calibration.