Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
annual reviews
Are annual reviews a positive or negative thing in your job? Everyone in my company gets reviews the same day/week, based on the companies fiscal year.
Last year they changed the way they do reviews at my job, and they didn't go so well. Although all reviews went bad, mine was by far the worst, probably because i'm extremely sensitive. 2 of the partners were involved in the actual review. The Jr. Partner skewed a situation to make me look horrible, marked me as 'below expectations' on 1/3 of the eval areas, reduced me to tears, then said it was a good thing I was crying. I came in the next morning, and talked to a partner outside the review process, and I resigned. He told me to take a few days and think about it -- ultimately I ended up staying, and they revised the review form..
I had some extreme personal issues, and caused me to be less productive than normal. I missed a few key targets this year -- no where near my billable hours, conflicts with the jr. partner, and almost missed a major deadline due to a mis-communication issue.
I"m really stressed about reviews this year, to the point that I didn't sleep last night. I wish I knew when they were going to do them, so I can take a xanax prior. We were supposed to have them about 3 weeks ago.
Re: annual reviews
Coincidentally, my annual review is tomorrow! The only person who reviews me is my direct boss and she loves me, so it has always gone well. Weirdly enough, I still get kind of nervous about my review though.
That really sucks that reviews at your firm are so negative. If you are expecting that again this year, I think the only thing that you can do is to prepare to defend yourself with key examples of why you're good at your job. Sorry, I don't have any other advice.
I hope it goes well this year. Good luck!
Reviews are not a big deal here. The bosses don't really care about them. I still hate the process, though, and always get nervous about it.
Really at this point I am so emotionally checked out this year that I don't even care how it goes. I just try to get in and out of the meeting as quickly as possible.
Yes we have reviews, and they're usually good. I work in a very positive work environment and that helps a lot. We go over the things I did well over the last year, and then we go over things I need to work on. It usually goes very well. I try not to take the criticism too personal becasuse I know they're doing it to help me reach my goals here. My position is still pretty new, so I've actually had 3 reviews this year.
I honestly don't know what I would do if my reviews were so harsh and negative like you describe. I really strive for success, and would take it very personal if my review was all negative. I would probably cry, but not until I was out of sight. If I ever felt that my performance was lacking at work and was missing deadlines, I would probably bring it to the attention of my boss(es) long before the review and ask for a smaller work load or suggestions on how to be more effecient.
Are you a person in the office that often gets asked to take on additional projects?
I do take on additional projects frequently, which is kind of part of the problem. I'm also highly involved in the training/development of the staff below me.
Until last year the reviews have been normal -- this is what you're good at, here's 1 or 2 things to work on during the year, and you're done. In fact, one year mine was done while we went out to breakfast.
The major problem is the jr. partner does the reviews. I don't really work for him, I work for a different partner that chooses to stay out of the review process. The Jr. Partner gets mad because I get pulled off of his projects to work for the main partner. He can't take it out on the other partner, so he takes it out on me.
Mine is approaching very soon too. Eek.
I get really nervous before them, but they usually turn out pretty well. Still get nervous though!
Ugh. That sounds miserable! Here's hoping all goes better this time! We don't really have annual reviews, but M does. This is the first year he's performing them (as well as getting one)-- and he's not loving the process. He's got a great team, but he can't just give everyone an "exceeds expectations," even though they do.
I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.
I think that's awesome he wants to hand out earned 'exceeds expectations'. I think our top one is 'excellant' and no one gets those, because their's always room for improvement. I think it's a BS approach, but whatever.
Apparently the bad reviews last year were supposed to motivate us to do better. I ended up taking a week off because i got burned out. I found another job (without insurance), but had an issue and needed to stay put for the insurance.
First of all, I agree with you that bad reviews tend to hurt morale rather than motivate.
Secondly, do you have sectional ratings on areas or just one overall rating? I totally agree that not giving people the highest rating simply because "no one is perfect" is complete BS. The highest rating is usually something like Exceptional or Excellent and I certainly think there are often people who fit that description in certain areas. That highest rating isn't called "Perfect in Every Way." Sometimes corporate management just irks me.
Sectional ratings -- probably 40 items or so -- it's on 2 pages. Each item has 5 ratings along with n/a. I had to laugh for a minute in the review. One of the items was supervising staff, and i got n/a. My title is supervisor.
When I talked to the managing partner, he was unaware that they were even doing forms. I think the problem with reviews in our office is the managing partner wants to be liked by everyone, so he won't give out reviews. Since I work primarily for him, he usually gives me mini reviews at the end of a longer project, but never an annual. The jr. partner wants to have everything formalized, but he's a mean person.