Facebook Performance Reviews

End of June 2019, everyone is Facebook office is talking of the upcoming performance reviews where we employees would be given promotions, fat bonuses or some motivational words to do more. But why do I feel hollow inside, after all, I have to brag about some of my successes achieved in the past half? Well, my problem is not with the stories to tell, I have enough of them. I am actually uncomfortable with the format of storytelling. There is a structure on how to explain what I have done to highlight my impact in several aspects. Moreover, there is only one person - my manager as of date, who has to remember my braggadocio notes and defend my rating in front of all the other managers in a mega marathon meeting called calibration. There are several help notes on showing impact, but I am thinking why to write a note, why can I not chose my own format, maybe make a video of my own work for calibrators. Also, won’t it be better if we rate everyone we know in a very democratized process? My experience tells me how eagerly people get grappled with self-bias and see the review cycles as a game of snakes N ladders where a promo is seen as a ladder, anything less than a bonus is seen as a snake and normal bonus is seen as a new normal.

Amidst all of these, I am thinking my worth to the company. Have I been useful enough - Yes sure I have been! Should I not just tell about what I have done for the company, my team, our business? I think that’s all I would have to say. I would certainly have faith in the system to give me the most deserving rating, something out of [Meets Some, Meets All, Exceeds Expectations, Greatly Exceeds, Redefines]. But what will my reaction be when I hear of great ladders to others who have done not so much in my eyes, wouldn’t it demotivate me? Maybe or maybe not. I think these are some obvious flaws of any employee performance review system which I will have to go through since no system can be perfect in this regard.

It’s difficult for humans to rate and evaluate other’s performance without any bias! I just hope I am not the one to suffer.