Day or Reckoning

The Ideal World

The time has come yet again for our annual review cycle. Once a year we have a 360 degree review of peers and managers in hopes of making us all better people. I would say in hope of making better workers, but you will shortly see why this is not the case. At least not for me.

To start with, let me say that in an ideal world, annual reviews are a great thing. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our work and we fail to see the bigger picture. Sometimes we continue to make the same mistakes or fall into the same patterns because that is what people do. A little heads up a little light on the path is a good thing.

In addition, being able to give feedback on/to your manager is also a good thing. Managers as well as employees fall into the same ruts and mediocre decisions as everyone. Peers are the same way. We can relate issues to peers but at review time we have the opportuntity to track overall trends. If one person tells you something it might be a fluke, but if the consensus comes back with that same issue, you might actually need to reconsider how you do things.

Reviews also provide opportunity for meritocracy to shine through compensation reviews and bonuses.

And all this is great isn't it?

The Real World

But this is not where I live. And if I had to venture a guess, most of the world doesn't live here either.

Let me revisit the points I just made but in the opposite order.

Compensation

Regardless of the state of the current economy, reviews in most companies arrive at the time of cost of living adjustments, not raises. For many reasons, most of them petty and bogus, real raises based on performance can't be given out. Why?
1 - Everyone will know when someone makes more in a current cycle. This causes resentment. People will wat to know who sabotaged them. Even if they are a horrible employee.
2 - Often managers just don't have the ability to determine % increase.
3 - Managers will attempt to be fair offering everyone the same %.

Manager Input

People also aren't going to tell their manager if something is wrong. People leave jobs, they usually don't try to work things out. Persistant and permeating institutionalized issues are not the something the average employee has the will to take on. Instead the the whole thing becomes a farce. After all we all can't be Erin Brokovich.

Peer input

Either they like you or they don't. There is no such thing as an objective review. What can I say about my colleague when I have never seen their work. As a developer most of our value is in the code we write and the applicaitons we produce, but since I neither see the code nor use the application, I am at best guessing.

My Case

And here is the rub and the totality of it all. In may case, there is no review of the actualy work I have done in the last year. No one looks at my code, reviews my scheduling, the level of bugs in my code, etc. No mention of working late, or my sick days. No code reviews.

So what does the annual review become? It becomes a personaliy test.

The review takes on the feel of a counselling session much more than how to become a better developer. Without the proper infrastructure in place, reviewers cling to the only thing they can - how you make them feel. What makes it much worse on the peer side that so many people need to provide input that have either no idea what you do, or have never actually seen your work. Our teams are so small and separated from business users, the actual human interaction performance (the measure of the review at this point) is not actually contributed to by people I have worked with.

Many people I have talked to have been told they need to participate more in company social events, but very few, if any, have been told they need to start brushing up on their skills.

In this senario, those who are more vocal and social are then promoted with greater responsibilities than those who actually perform. This does nothing for morale since those who are upset with the outcome usually don't stick around for the next one.