wait, I misunderstood. If this is a group of managers talking about direct reports, this is fine and normal. This happens everywhere.
2 Likes
What aofan said.
At a previous job I had a chance to talk with the head of HR at an internal data science event. (Some companies are throwing an awful lot of data science at HR these days.) Anyway, we somehow got to the topic of exit interviews â turns out they had done away with them. The explanation I got was basically âWaste of time. Everybody lies. They all say itâs about compensation, because thatâs the safe answer. But itâs hardly ever about compensation.â
a
at my current place, the signing actuaries meet sometimes. i think they probably talk about everyone. itâs not a big deal.
at my previous job where they had the managers meeting where we knew it was going on, one of my friends DID tell me some stupid petty shit someone said about me. thatâs gonna happen. If you have negative thoughts about someoneâs work, how is this even âbehind their backsâ though? itâs feedback on their performance. itâs up to their manager to tell them whatâs said. if someone has negative feedback on a person, and itâs legit, iâd expect it to not stay a secret. they should be told.
a
oh, so they are having a meeting to compare everyoneâs reports to determine raises and stuff? yeah, thatâs what they did at my prior job, but everyone works with everyone else, so you would get feedback from people who werenât your managers.
also normal. none of this seems abnormal. maybe itâs more of a consulting thing though. iâm in consulting.
sounds like a meeting to âfightâ for your people to get money. still totally normal in consulting.
a
Iâm going to guess your direct report will âsomehowâ find out how you rate them anyway. Not exactly a big secret between manager and direct report. Iâm guessing you just mean it would happen sooner?
a
a
Iâm not seeing why they would care. It sounds like the entire point of this is to figure out between managers how to assign raises. It seems normal to me.
a
Almost sounds like something my manager in the prior shop did, except she would openly trash talk certain of her direct reports to certain other of her direct reports for the purpose of creating conflict and in-fighting so she could sit back and watch.
In the ~8 months I was there a dozen people bailed out and every one of them made the exact same complaints with HR. Unsurprisingly, management never did anything about it because she knows teh analytics even though she never produced squat.
a
okay, if this has nothing to do with raises and itâs just a way to âbondâ by gossiping about your team with other managers, yeah itâs dumb.
seems like the type of culture where excellence is not celebrated, but rather tenure.
Otherwise the tea will spill real fast if junior people are promoted to managers and still remain friends with other analysts.
Okay, that is weird. Usually, the point is twofold:
- other people see the work your direct report does. They may have insight you donât see, either positive or negative. You should get the benefit of that before the performance review
- managers should level-set, so that raises and promotions are fair, and itâs not just that the guy with the generous boss gets more.
Iâve participated in those, and I think they are generally beneficial. Itâs not about gossip and sharing dirt, itâs about seeing the full picture and being equitable.
And itâs not what i consider a âbondingâ event. All working together to get the presentation done is a bonding event. So is going out to party afterwards. Group performance reviews are neutral, or sometimes confrontational, as managers compete to get raises for their best people from the limited pot.
Whatâs to spill? Each analystâs manager is going to tell them the result of that session. At at least, the part thatâs relevant to them. Itâs a pretty useless review if you donât share with the employee what they did well and where they can improve.