Below Expectations

Below Expectations

I don’t know how to start it. I was rated below expectations on behavioural priorities, and it has been about a month since then. The dust has settled, and it is said writing things on paper clears your head and consequently you feel better. This is the main objective here; it may sound like ranting at places but i will try to steer back to the main objective of clearing my head and finally be able to accept the rating and move on with life.

When something goes wrong; the logical explanation of the evet is the last thing we want, we all want a shoulder to cry on. Treat this rant as that shoulder of your virtual assistant.

Another disclaimer, it explores the emotional aspects of the below expectation ratings and its one-sided view, only employee’s view so in no matter it shall be taken seriously.

Ok, let’s get back to the main topic.

I received my annual assessment report in the morning and somehow my manager assumed that’s its best to have the performance assessment discussion on the same day. It may be a good strategy if the employees is rated all good and everything is hunky-dory. ?

Definitely not, if you have rated the employee below expectations especially on Behaviour Priorities. Such poor rating could evoke emotions of all sorts in their mind and with this emotional clout in their mind, the employee can’t think straight and any performance review meeting in such mental state is bound to get heated and turn ugly. For sure.

It was so emotional for me I started crying on the video call and I could not speak at all for a while.

So I am telling from my personal experience its best if the performance review meeting is scheduled with a suitable gap of 2 to 3 days. It will give employee ample time to process the ratings and the employee could keep their calm during the review meeting. Moreover, If the manager is right in his / her judgement, why the rush.

Next point, you can make the priorities totally measurable as much as you wish but the assessment still remains qualitative. ?So even if the manager keeps emphasising that the assessment is done fairly without any biases, it does not add value to the discussion and it all sounds hollow. Manager shall say it clearly that the ratings are not objective but subjective of his view of my performance. ?

?Moving on, it’s quite obvious that there would be grievances in performance review meetings and managers shall try to address them as humanely as possible. If you hide behind company policies and don’t use your common sense in your arguments, you look nothing more than a robot hired by management to deliver their decisions. So never leave behind the human touch in the name of compliance and policies. otherwise, how would you justify any changes in policies tomorrow.

In my case, last year 100% on time trainings was a requirement that I failed, but somehow this year this requirement is reduced to 95%.

So, please use your common sense when you are rating someone so harshly on such silly priorities. You are a manager not a circus ring master. It questions your morality as a manager if you don’t try to unearth the reasons why trainings were delayed. ??

?This one you are absolutely gonna like it. I am a safety engineer and I play with risk matrix day in day out. In my 17 years of professional life with top companies I never saw that company limited personnel harm to only 3 levels, say Insignificant, Significant and Severe.

Imagine these 3 levels covering the whole spectrum of minor bruises to multiple fatalities. How coarse the transition would be from low risk to medium and medium to high risk. Usually, risk matrix has 5 levels and sometimes it is extended to even 7 levels. ?

Then why there is only 3 categories when it comes to Annual Performance assessment. Exceed Expectations (EE), Meets Expectations (ME) and Below Expectations (BE). And these 3 levels are not even evenly distributed. HRs keep stressing that ME (Meet Expectations) is a very strong rating. One shall not assume that you shall, all the time, be rated ME for your regular work. Sometimes you are rated ME even if you do exceptional jobs in one or two aspects. The intent or emphasis being highlighting that you shall not expect EE rating even if you do remarkable job.

So, if you translate these ratings to individual performance multiplier, it will look something like this. EE - 0.9 to 1.0; ME - 0.8 to 0.9 and BE - 0 to 0.8.

You can see, it’s not a simple distribution. A wide range of 0 to 0.8 is intentionally left for BE. Your failure is ensured through design. Imagine similar approach is adopted in schools. You kid can’t be promoted to next class unless they score above 80%. This uneven weightage is insane.

Do you keep similar weightage when managers are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 during glints survey. I seriously doubt that.

Last argument

Who invented this “behavioural priorities” thing.

I meant, why do you judge me on my leadership qualitied when I have made it clear that I have no intention of becoming a leader. Let me do my technical work in peace. Why do I need to demonstrate leadership qualities.

It is like you are judging a rat for his lion-like qualities. The rat will live their whole life under the impression that they/them was never adequate. Yess this rat preferred they/them pronouns.

?I hope you would find it comforting if you are also rated BE like me. I looked for something similar on google but most of those were so positive, they killed me more.

It may be your 1st BE rating but it’s an annual affair for companies and no matter what you do, you can never win against company’s policies and their legal team. They are well prepared in handling such reactions so accept this BE rating as your bad karma and move on. It is done and dusted so you also leave it behind and get going your day-to-day work. If you still can’t find solace and you feel the unjust was too big to let go, better resign and find a new job elsewhere. As it is said it’s better to divorce rather than living in a dead marriage.

How na?ve I am. I thought my colleagues will help me in processing this bad rating but I was wrong, they want to know your numbers just to compare it with theirs.

I hope this writing exercise would bring that much needed closure that my colleagues failed to provide. ?

Amen!!! Jay Shree Ram

#appraisal #PerformanceReview #Priorities #CorporatePolicy

Afterthought: Below.... seriously!!!! this very word is negative. I will search for a better word, more positive one. BELOW.….. naaah.