Performance Review- Critique?
Performance Review- Critique?
(OP)
A teacher friend and I were talking about our reviews and she told me that she critiques her review as an attachment and returns it. The attachment basically documents her opinion of the individual aspects of the review.
Mine is coming up soon. I usually don't have an opportunity to vocally give my opinion, I am told to sign whether or not I agree with what has been written. I am usually told the same thing over and over as far as negative points, even though I can not think of any re-occurences of the issue.
Does anyone critique reviews in a manufacturing industry? If I were to do so, it would be in an objective manner. Any opinions?
Mine is coming up soon. I usually don't have an opportunity to vocally give my opinion, I am told to sign whether or not I agree with what has been written. I am usually told the same thing over and over as far as negative points, even though I can not think of any re-occurences of the issue.
Does anyone critique reviews in a manufacturing industry? If I were to do so, it would be in an objective manner. Any opinions?





RE: Performance Review- Critique?
I believe in general your signature indicates that you've actually been given the review, so you can't claim ignorance. At least mine have never included any verbiage indicating that my signature implies or states agreement.
Certainly if I disagreed with my review I would comment, either on the review if possible, or else in a seperate document addressed to the relevant manager(s) and possibly HR.
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
Many outfits will interpret any response whatsoever as a form of insubordination.
Your criteria for objectivity are completely disjoint from those used by HR. Trust me on this.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
Rafiq Bulsara
http://www.srengineersct.com
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
As I've gotten older I realize more and more that it is very easy to be critical, but d@mn hard to effectively coach an employee and modify their behavior without causing any hard feelings or de-motivate the employee. Generally my reviews have been equitable. Sometimes there were some boss impressions that I didn't feel were correct or fair. Once I got a comment that was so unbelievably outrageous that I immediately had a vision of a big neon sign over Boss' head flashing the word "idiot."
Once or twice the review wording was absolutely wrong and I recognized it as the supervision laying the groundwork necessary to terminate me under false pretenses. I decided I had nothing to lose, so I engaged in direct battle against this.
Once I refused to sign, told the boss I'd respond in writing. I took his review and shredded it sentence by sentence, showing evidence to the contrary with dates & witnesses, to each charge against me. When confronted with this, he backed off and re-wrote the review. After I got his signature on my improved review (and it got put into my employee file), I quit two weeks later.
A similar incident occurred in which I wasn't able to get the wording changed or the supervisor to admit any wrongdoing on his part. I still quit shortly thereafter.
A Performance Review is a very difficult situation and the cards are generally stacked against you. You're in shoally waters, navigate carefully.
TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering
www.bluetechnik.com
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
- Steve
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
Tygerdawg, sounds like you created a hostile situation over it, and then in the end, got what you wanted, and then quit. In my opinion that was an irrational move in both situations.
Also, "just go through the motion" and "no upside to responding" are ways to just sit back and let other people take control of one's career.
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
In most cases, responding in a mature and professional manner will have more of a positive than negative effect.
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
If raises are based on a score from the review, getting negatives removed, or positives improved, can impact your bottom line.
Personally, I think that putting anything in a review that is negative is not justifiable unless the issue has previously been brought to the employees attention. In other words, it is not an appropriate format for raising new issues. I have gotten negatives removed on a review this way. Furthermore, I think that putting negatives in a review will server one purpose: to piss off the employee and it is highly unlikely that anything good will come of doing so.
On the flip side, keep in mind that for all the hype made about a review, it is really a worthless pile of paper. Once you walk out the door, it has little to no effect on you. The law should dictate (i.e. limit) what they are allowed to say about you and your performance and the review is irrelevant.
Also remember, that the review is just as much a reflection on the company and the manager as it is on the employee.
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
I had the option of discussing the review with independent people within the organisation (hr and others). My boss was not particularly happy about me following that path. Which you have to question the reason why - protecting his own performance appraisal / bonus or that my comments were valid. Either way the response from the boss was another reason to polish up my resume.
Therefore my advice, act professionally - no emotions, be humble where required, facts only, yes add comments (if not for now, to document the reasons) and finally, you are only in control of your own actions.
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
Otherwise I tend to agree with Mike & Co for most private industry reviews in places with limited employee protection such as US at will workers.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are exceptions, just don't ask me to name one.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
Find me a review that's objective, quantitative and not in some way tied to remuneration and I'll go work for free for that company.
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
Of course I don't give them a chance to make ammends. I just move on.
A buddy of mine got a bad review simply because there were too many good reviews in the department, and he drew the short straw. His supervisor actually told him or I would not have believed it. I didn't last much longer there.
I have never given feedback to a review.
RE: Performance Review- Critique?
I've not commented since where I have any choice, or if forced to comment I just write something positive but vague like "I'm looking forward to the challenges of the next six months" or similar.
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