Do Year End Performance Appraisal Reviews Matter

Do Year End Performance Appraisal Reviews Matter?

We are approaching year end which means many of us have to squeeze an entire year’s worth of projects, process improvements, cost/time saves, sales numbers, and  other items that contributed to “the bottom line” into a year end performance appraisal review.

But does it matter?

I was at a happy hour with a few work colleagues the other night and something someone said made me chuckle.

He said something to the effect of “every year, I put something asinine in my year end like ‘monkeys love bananas, and nobody ever notices”.

Monkeys Love Bananas

My first instinct, probably a result of my twisted humor or rebellious nature, was an ear-to-ear smile and inner praise for such a ballsy move.

The next day I encountered a sobering (pun intended) reality… my business bud was absolutely right!

In my opinion performance reviews, for the most part, are insignificant when it comes to determining your year end rating, annual bonus, and merit increase.

True they provide leadership talking points when discussing the value of their direct reports, but they are a small piece of the performance review pie.

When alignment meetings are conducted and leaders are climbing over one-another to convey why their employees are better than their peer’s, if you are stuck with a limp fish leader who couldn’t convince an Eskimo to buy a jacket, what you wrote in your year end performance review really won’t matter.

In my experience, what really matters is whether your leader believes in you, is respected in their own circles, and has mastered the art of debate.

I’ve seen employees of mediocre business value get rave reviews and climb the corporate ranks not on their own merit, but because their leaders were all-stars and gave their stamp of approval.

Unfortunately, I already wrote and submitted my year end appraisal review, but next year I have every intention to include a crazy snippet and truly test my theory and comments above.

Please leave comments below, I’d love to hear your opinion on the subject.

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