Performance Appraisals

[[email protected]]

Hello, I'm posting this question here because I want responses from
engineers, so please don't be offended. I want to know what your
thoughts are concerning Performance Appraisals at your company, are
they beneficial, how are they conducted, and what is the best way go
give performance appraisals?

Where I work, the manager brings you into their office, starts a series
of short questions concerning your family and other things not relating
to your job and then finally gives you a pat on the back and says, good
job. Not much is really discussed and therefore not really useful.

Your comments are welcomed.

thanks,
joe

 

[Vladimir Vassilevsky]

Joe,

The "performance appraisal" is a purely formal game. The only purpose of
it is to protect the company from lawsuits. If someone who was let go is
considering himself offended and brings the case to the court, then the
company will need something in writing to prove their point.

Vladimir Vassilevsky

DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

http://www.abvolt.com

 

[Scott Seidman]

Where I work, the manager brings you into their office, starts a series
of short questions concerning your family and other things not relating
to your job and then finally gives you a pat on the back and says, good
job. Not much is really discussed and therefore not really useful.

If there were something wrong with your performance, this is probably not
how the meeting would go.

 

[Nial Stewart]

The "performance appraisal" is a purely formal game. The only purpose of it is to protect the

company from lawsuits.

Not if they're done right.

While I was at Nortel 8-15 years ago they carried out performance reviews
which I have since realised were more useful than most people gave
credit for. There were objectives set in agreement with your team leader
that could be used to justify training etc. There was also a fairly
honest apprisal of your performance against last years targets etc.

The targets and objectives were set as much by your own character
assesment as your bosses, these had to be agreed.


Now, working for myself I know I should be carrying out the same exercise
for myself (but never seem to have the time).


Nial.

 

[Joerg]

Hello Joe,

Hello, I'm posting this question here because I want responses from
engineers, so please don't be offended. I want to know what your
thoughts are concerning Performance Appraisals at your company, are
they beneficial, how are they conducted, and what is the best way go
give performance appraisals?

Where I work, the manager brings you into their office, starts a series
of short questions concerning your family and other things not relating
to your job and then finally gives you a pat on the back and says, good
job. Not much is really discussed and therefore not really useful.

Your comments are welcomed.

When I had to conduct my first ones I learned from a book:
William S.Swan "How to do Superior performance Appraisals

Helped me quite a bit and the engineers I gave appraisals later said
they liked the style. Appraisals can be very helpful for the career of
the person being appraised. If they are done right.

 

[[email protected]]

Hello, I'm posting this question here because I want responses from
engineers, so please don't be offended. I want to know what your
thoughts are concerning Performance Appraisals at your company, are
they beneficial, how are they conducted, and what is the best way go
give performance appraisals?

I've worked both sides of the desk since about 1974 when I first became
a hiring manager. In organizations larger than a few dozen people,
especially those with HR departments, the formal process is necessary
to organize and document skill sets and salary administration in a
uniform way.

Many people have a hard time tooting their own horn, and a good
reciprocol review cycle gives the employee a clear time to intiate
discussion about new/added responsibilities, promotion goals, and
salary goals.

Likewise, sometimes marginal performance isn't worth the manager taking
you aside and telling you to pull your own weight (or else), but at the
review cycle, it's much easier to open the employee up and find out
what is causing the weak performance. Be it training, home problems,
lack of motivation, lack of respect inside the team, lack of guidance,
etc ... all things easier discussed when this process is administered
well. The first few places I was a manger, there was zero traning for
what was expected, or the gains that could be made organizational if
this was done well ... certainly better training can help both side of
the desk.

Where I work, the manager brings you into their office, starts a series
of short questions concerning your family and other things not relating
to your job and then finally gives you a pat on the back and says, good
job. Not much is really discussed and therefore not really useful.

Stresses outside of work, affect employee productivity big time. A MH
checkup at review is more than useful to understand what is going on in
your life that affects your work. I'd say your manager is on the ball,
and if anything was wrong, you certainly would have heard about it.

It's always a good idea to take your boss to lunch, and talk about the
review process from both sides of the desk. You will probably be there
sooner than you expect, and having that discussion, can sometimes be a
key opening discussion that you are THINKING about your job, and where
your advancment will take you.

Have Fun!
John

 

[Luhan]

Hello, I'm posting this question here because I want responses from
engineers, so please don't be offended. I want to know what your
thoughts are concerning Performance Appraisals at your company, are
they beneficial, how are they conducted, and what is the best way go
give performance appraisals?

Where I work, the manager brings you into their office, starts a series
of short questions concerning your family and other things not relating
to your job and then finally gives you a pat on the back and says, good
job. Not much is really discussed and therefore not really useful.

Your comments are welcomed.

Glowing perfomance reviews and stock options are what companies give
valued employees instead of raises.

Luhan

 

[Vladimir Vassilevsky]

Luhan wrote:

Glowing perfomance reviews and stock options are what companies give
valued employees instead of raises.

Good point, Luhan. In the big company, there is a salary schedule: how
much is getting paid to a person in this position. There is actually no
way for them to give any raise.

Also this is how the loafers from HR are making themselves look very useful.

VLV

 

[Joerg]

Hello Luhan,

Glowing perfomance reviews and stock options are what companies give
valued employees instead of raises.

And stock options can be a darn good thing. It's the American way

 

[[email protected]]

Glowing perfomance reviews and stock options are what companies give
valued employees instead of raises.

Glowing perfomance reviews are your collaterial for a promotion. Stock
options are way far over rated. In 19 out of 20 small to mid-sized
companies they are worthless, and maybe worth less than your option
price when you can finally cash them out. In larger companies, they
might actually be worth something, or a golden handcuff that stops you
from advancing faster by changing jobs. Stocks are gambling, and unless
you are on top of the market, or extremely lucky, I'd not bet on them
even being worth the overtime you might spend to justify them.

Raises in almost every company are there for those that show steady
improvement in skills at all levels, a strong work ethic, and a
stronger interest in being successful and making the company
successful. For those companies where this is not true, I'd change
jobs, unless you have decided this a comfortable retirement job, AND
you have some faith they will let you stay to retirement. Even then,
I'd change jobs, because I HATE the lack of challenge in my job.

 

[Eric Jacobsen]

Hello Luhan,


And stock options can be a darn good thing. It's the American way

Can be, but often aren't. I've seen the existence of stock options
used as an excuse for keeping salaries low ("You'll get rich on the
options!"). All of my Intel options (seven years worth) are
underwater, most by a large enough margin that's there's little hope
that they'll be worth anything before they expire.

The story was similar at my previous company, and it was always
amusing that every time options were granted the stock price went down
a notch. So the options were never worth anything and had an effect
sort of the opposite of incentive (i.e., demoralizing). Once every
few years they'd restructure all the worthless options in order to get
some incentive back, and the stock would just drop further to negate
the new structure. It was comical once you got past the sadness.

So I've got about sixteen years of "stock option incentives" that have
essentially cost me money.


Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms, Intel Corp.
My opinions may not be Intel's opinions.
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Your comments are welcomed.

Only ever got one of those. Threw it away unread.

 

[Andrew Holme]

Hello, I'm posting this question here because I want responses from
engineers, so please don't be offended. I want to know what your
thoughts are concerning Performance Appraisals at your company, are
they beneficial, how are they conducted, and what is the best way go
give performance appraisals?

My previous company defined "pillars" (personal, technical, career, business
....), career paths (technical, delivery management, project management...)
and career levels (1=grad ... 7=MD), and published a document which
attempted to define the essence of how a person at level X on path Y behaves
in respect of pillar Z. Obviously, the language was a bit vague and
hand-wavey in places - but what's the alternative? It's not easy to
implement something that's fair and consistent across a company employing
thousands worldwide.

Staff commented on their own performance against pillars, and agreed
objectives. Feedback was received from project managers for whom staff had
worked during the year. The pillars provided a framework for the
questionnaires which staff and managers had to fill-in. A lot was captured
in writing. Everyone had a staff manager with whom all this was reviewed.
The staff manager was ultimately the person who scored your performance.

It's easy to be cynical on encountering the sort of management-speak in
which these things are couched, or else get frustrated - especially if
you're an engineer - about the apparent vagueness of the questions, but I
always managed to think of something to put in every box eventually!

 

[martin griffith]

Luhan wrote:



Good point, Luhan. In the big company, there is a salary schedule: how
much is getting paid to a person in this position. There is actually no
way for them to give any raise.

Also this is how the loafers from HR are making themselves look very useful.

VLV

Then what is the alternative to HR, ( dont ask me, I havent had a
"job" in almost 10 years), and I've never worked for a company that
had a "modern" HR dept. In those days they where called " personnel"
deparments, much more human


martin

 

[martin griffith]

Can be, but often aren't. I've seen the existence of stock options
used as an excuse for keeping salaries low ("You'll get rich on the
options!"). All of my Intel options (seven years worth) are
underwater, most by a large enough margin that's there's little hope
that they'll be worth anything before they expire.

The story was similar at my previous company, and it was always
amusing that every time options were granted the stock price went down
a notch. So the options were never worth anything and had an effect
sort of the opposite of incentive (i.e., demoralizing). Once every
few years they'd restructure all the worthless options in order to get
some incentive back, and the stock would just drop further to negate
the new structure. It was comical once you got past the sadness.

So I've got about sixteen years of "stock option incentives" that have
essentially cost me money.


Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms, Intel Corp.
My opinions may not be Intel's opinions.
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

wrong Algorithm maybe?

<sorry>


martin

 

[[email protected]]

Minister of Algorithms, Intel Corp.
My opinions may not be Intel's opinions.
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

ROTF ... keep the Faith Baby

Great title!

 

[[email protected]]

Then what is the alternative to HR, ( dont ask me, I havent had a
"job" in almost 10 years), and I've never worked for a company that
had a "modern" HR dept. In those days they where called " personnel"
departments, much more human

I've worked for a couple of places that were deliberately kept too
small - below 250 employees - to support a personnel department. The
managers and their secretaries had to do the necessary scut-work. It
seemd to work out.

My experience of personnel departments, both as a job interviewer and
as a job interviewee, was that they ranged from the useless to the
obstructive.

Most of them thought that they had the right and duty to filter
candidates for engineering jobs, and they reliably let through totally
unsuitable candidates, and tried to block people whom we eventually
hired. None of them had the vaguest idea what a "good" engineering CV
looked like, but the "good" ones were at least aware of their
inadequacy.

 

[Jim Thompson]

Hello Luhan,


And stock options can be a darn good thing. It's the American way

Stock options are what you get when a company is destined to fail ;-)

Now-a-days, when someone walks in the door and offers me a percentage,
I SHOW them the door ;-)

...Jim Thompson

 

[Jim Thompson]

Can be, but often aren't. I've seen the existence of stock options
used as an excuse for keeping salaries low ("You'll get rich on the
options!"). All of my Intel options (seven years worth) are
underwater, most by a large enough margin that's there's little hope
that they'll be worth anything before they expire.

The story was similar at my previous company, and it was always
amusing that every time options were granted the stock price went down
a notch. So the options were never worth anything and had an effect
sort of the opposite of incentive (i.e., demoralizing). Once every
few years they'd restructure all the worthless options in order to get
some incentive back, and the stock would just drop further to negate
the new structure. It was comical once you got past the sadness.

So I've got about sixteen years of "stock option incentives" that have
essentially cost me money.


Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms, Intel Corp.
My opinions may not be Intel's opinions.
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

Yep. Once upon a time I had a bundle of options should I join Mattel
Toy Co.

Went up like a rocket until they were exercisable, then fell to
worthless :-(

...Jim Thompson

 

[Joerg]

Hello Eric,

Can be, but often aren't. I've seen the existence of stock options
used as an excuse for keeping salaries low ("You'll get rich on the
options!"). All of my Intel options (seven years worth) are
underwater, most by a large enough margin that's there's little hope
that they'll be worth anything before they expire.

I meant small companies where you as an employee can see what's going on
and can actually have an impact. That has paid off well for me. Then I
invested a little in Intel. Big mistake, because they began making lots
of mistakes after that IMHO. A mono-culture isn't going to work, wether
that's in ag or in electronics yet they seem to be going there. Oh well,
so we are in the same boat. My stocks are under water as much as your
options :-(

Sometimes I dream I could be at the helm at a company like Intel or
Infineon, just for a year, and turn a few things around. Intel had some
dynamite products like programmable logic etc. Most of the time just
when it began to work they ditched it.

The story was similar at my previous company, and it was always
amusing that every time options were granted the stock price went down
a notch. ...

Probably via dilution. Maybe they overdid it a wee bit.

... So the options were never worth anything and had an effect
sort of the opposite of incentive (i.e., demoralizing). Once every
few years they'd restructure all the worthless options in order to get
some incentive back, and the stock would just drop further to negate
the new structure. It was comical once you got past the sadness.

That would be the time to start looking for "other ventures". Either the
products are dull or management is.