Comments on: How to Improve Your Performance Review This Year

By: Money and Your Job - Considering Finances & Benefits in Your Job Search | Money Smart Life

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:25:57 +0000

[...] certainly things you can do to increase your salary, such as learning the company salary policy and promoting yourself you should be sure to consider all the financial aspects of the job you work in. In the [...]

By: kitty

kitty — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 06:06:40 +0000

We’ve had to write up our accomplishments for years. Currently we have a long web form – a couple of pages – that stays in our record and a one page Power Point summary that management uses during ranking meetings when everyone is compared to everyone else, including managers, first within group, then to other groups, etc.

The short Power Point form includes items for: technical achievements (”designed and developed X”, “lead architect and developer for Y” with description of how X or Y was difficult), business impact, leadership (even for non-managers – you could demonstrate leadership by taking initiative and doing something or convincing your collegues of your good idea), external impact (this includes papers and patents). Trying to fit everything on one Power Point page is really tricky, you could always decrease fonts but only up to a point.

I usually write main accomplishments during the year so that I don’t forget, then spend a week or so creating the version to send to my manager, then change it after I get feedback.

The number we get on evaluation and ranking really determines both the salary increase and the bonus – the range for both bonus and salary increase is pretty wide, about 0-10%, top number depending on how well the company is doing. Additionally, two years of “needs improvement” means immediate probation and discussion with a manager about your future with the company. So there is a pretty big incentive on writing the best form possible.

One problem we have with ranking, is that it puts people against each other. You want your project to be successful; otherwise, you’ll have no impact to brag about, and you want to help others since it helps your project, but at the same time you want to be ranked higher than others. Still, it seems better than in places where everyone gets the same raise regardless of how good they are.

By: MoneyNing

MoneyNing — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:36:08 +0000

It’s a refreshing idea to let the person write up something before the performance review but wouldn’t this be great for people who have a blog since their written skills are better and can present themselves better in writing?

By: Gayle

Gayle — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:16:04 +0000

I work in a healthcare setting. For as long as I have worked here the annual review has been regarded as a joke. I have never seen anybody get a larger or smaller raise based on the review. You jump through the hoop and get whatever percentage it is that year until you hit the top of scale. Your actual performance is irrelevant to the process as you proceed up the wage scale in lockstep with everybody else who was hired the same year you were. I have been tempted to write complete gibberish on that sheet of paper just to see if anyone actually reads it. And they wonder at the lack of employee satisfaction, low morale and lack of motivation……

By: Free Money Finance

Free Money Finance — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:20:09 +0000

Star Money Articles for the Week of November 12…

Here are some recent interesting posts from the MoneyBlogNetwork and beyond: Consumerism Commentary highlights some useful websites. AllFinancialMatters covers the right mix of stocks and bonds. MightyBargainHunter gives some good career advice. Five C…

By: Toby

Toby — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:41:02 +0000

The managers at a former employer of mine used to joke that noone got 5’s (out of 5) because everyone can use some improvement and, I quote, “to get a 5 here, you’d have to walk on water *chuckle chuckle*”

Reminded me of the Family Guy episode when Peter’s father becomes his boss and names Jesus “Employee of the Month”. One of Peter’s coworker complains, “How am I supposed to compete with that?”

Needless to say, reviews/bonuses/raises were a joke. So don’t be surprised that some of your employees might think it is a waste of time to waste energy of “self-assessments”.

By: guinness416

guinness416 — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:14:45 +0000

I put a lot of effort into my appraisal forms, and always have positive reviews (but we don’t do points/ratings systems nonsense) and good bonuses – this is often the only time you’ll have the ear of a real decision-maker at your firm, so if you’re making that request for education assistance or more vacation time or whatever it ususally helps have lots of backup info. I have, however, found over the course of four employers that any times spent on “suggestions” or “process improvements” are a waste of effort, although I do try to talk over the suggestions offered by my direct reports with them.

By: SJean

SJean — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:44:18 +0000

I would write more than a few sentences, but if you aren’t a stand out employee, putting a lot of effort into the forum won’t really compensate for that.

The best advice I have heard about yearly reviews? Work extra hard for the 2 months prior to the review. People have short memories.

Of course, just being a good employee always and documenting it (so you can throw it on this at the end of the year) is really the sensible approach.

By: The Simple Dollar » The Simple Dollar Morning Roundup: Campaign Work Edition

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:30:46 +0000

[...] How to Improve Your Performance Review This Year What I usually find works very well is to try to find opportunities to go over your objectives regularly with your supervisor, so that the annual performance review is a complete foregone conclusion when it rolls around. (@ money smart life) [...]

By: Single Ma

Single Ma — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:50:45 +0000

My last employer had a similar process. It took more effort than I realized, but after the first go, it was easy as pie with every other review. The best thing about it, I used the same information to update my resume and it helped me land a better job. LOL