Sunday, August 28, 2005

The illusion of fairness

Let me first say that I got a 3.5 review this time and got a hefty bonus etc etc. So I am not the so called loser wining. My average review rating is way above 3.0 and after having gone through this for the couple of years, I still think that the review system is unfair and does not encourage colloboration, team effort and make people more individualistic. I really felt good at the moment I knew I got a 3.5 rating. Soon after I exited my manager's office, my enthusiam vanished as I started thinking about my teams accomplishment and how almost 1/3 of the team got screwed with 3.0 even though I think the team did an amazing job. My boss's boss refers to our last year as "Running Hot" implying the long hours put by the team and the team's drive to the finish line on time. Well, if that was true, I would have expected everyone in the team to get an equal share of the pie. That didn't happen for certain.

What is the solution? Read the employee feedback in MS Poll. In other words, the management is not listening to the employees in this matter!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"What is the solution? Read the employee feedback in MS Poll. In other words, the management is not listening to the employees in this matter!!!"

You know what I love about the MS Poll? The thought that anything we put in there matters. Sure they trot out some half-witted plan to deal with the low points of the poll but nothing meaningful. No big changes. But they will remind you of all they did (with their half-witted plan) on the eve of the poll, so you can see just how much they "listen."

Go read the historical rolled-up feedback from previous polls. People have been complaining about the review system for years. What changes? Someone in HR gets their 4.0 for revising the review form every six-months. The less like the old form it looks, the better and if you can roll out a whole new format and reviewing system, all's more the better.

I too had a "good" (4.0) review but the raise will barely cover the cost-of-living for the third year running (I had to explain why this was the case to my manager). Stock was fine but will never be nearly as lucrative as the options were.