The company gives us the results of our annual performance appraisal in the second week in January every year. There are 4 levels of performance. Your rating is supposed to provide an overall assessment of your work over the previous year, relative to your peers at the corresponding band level. The rating is a key factor in raises and annual bonuses, so I guess it is pretty important.
Of course, raises and bonuses also depend heavily on factors that are not entirely in your control - such as overall financial health of the economy, the company, and your business unit.
To a certain degree, your performance level is not entirely under your control as well. There are unwritten quotas established for each business unit and organization for each of the 4 performance levels. For example, if you were in a department full of top-notch engineers, all performing at the highest level for a particular year, the system (as its implemented) would never permit the entire department to get the highest performance rating.
Some high-climbing folks spend a lot of mental energy fussing about their rating during the year. (Positioning themselves for teams or roles where they think they might stand the best chance of maximizing their rating). I decided, about 5 years into my career, that that was sort of silly.
At that point, I decided that if I took care of my business, worked hard, and improved as an engineer, that the rest would take care of itself. No sense worrying about who you are competing against or taking on assignments that you don’t find personally satisfying. (Of course, that attitude may be the reason I am still, after 16 years, still an Advisory Software Engineer :-).
An analogy that is sort of appropriate is to consider how the really outstanding coaches, in any sport, approach their work. Even though their fates almost directly hinge on the final score, the best coaches are always coaching against the potential of their team and not the scoreboard or their opponents.
- You can play your best and lose. Sometimes the other team is just better. Sometimes factors outside of your control play into the outcome (officiating or the proverbial bounce of the ball).
- Conversely, you can play far short of your potential and still win a game, but should you really feel good about that?
- Over time, most of the factors out of your control even out, so don’t bitch and moan about that stuff – you just end up looking like a whiner.
In 2007, I was really disappointed that I didn’t get a top rating. I felt I had done some excellent work and had led a (very junior) team of two other developers in a very challenging environment. But my manager didn’t really see it that way. I pouted for about 2 days (do as I say,not as I do) before deciding to make my mark in a little broader context of our component. Long story short – I worked really hard in 2008 and added some really important technology into our component – those contributions were ultimately recognized and all was well. In summary, my approach has worked out OK for me.
Having said all of that, it is still a pretty exciting moment when your boss calls you into the office to give you your final score. 12 months of lots of long hours and hard work distilled into one of four numbers. It is ironic that a technology company uses such a coarse grain scale when grading the performance of the worker bees (hell, the SAT is on a 2400 point scale now and even colleges still use the 4.00 deal).
My expectations this year were tempered by the fact that I had joined my new department at the end of 2009 but I was pleased with the work that I had done last year and, more importantly, how well I had integrated with my new peers.
I guess what they say about the breaks evening out really is true – because I was pleasantly surprised after the boss gave me my number at 4:15 last Friday, I stopped on the way home and upgraded from my normal domestic swill to a six pack of these puppies – and they went down real smooth.
