How Adobe Got Rid of Traditional Performance Reviews | Hacker News Reader

How Adobe Got Rid of Traditional Performance Reviews

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63 pointstmbsundar42 comments

I gave up on the effectiveness of yearly performance reviews more than 20 years ago when I got a bad review for spending 20% of my time on internal company support instead of 10%. I had been sending my boss weekly reports all year and the week before my review he added up the time and decided my priorities were wrong. That review cost me more than 4K in bonuses and raises. Protesting to the VP made no difference.

When I resigned two days later the SVP got involved, gave me almost 10K in bonuses and raises and promoted me to a lead role on another team to keep me.

I've seen nothing but problems ever since; morale issues caused by disappointing raises and bonuses, problem employees left to fester until the review, a week or more of lost productivity as everybody fills in massive 360 surveys and then argues over them for.

Weekly 1-1 meetings with regular review checkpoints make far more sense.

Hi, my name is Ben and I just filled out my first 'traditional' performance review ever. I guess the company's trying to act mature or something. I feel like sharing..

The whole form was full of buzzwords, felt moronic and - useless. You were supposed to judge yourself in various ways, with arbitrary scales and that thing was full of vague descriptions that could've just as easily been part of a horoscope. Or .. a fortune cookie.

I'm tempted to send an update to my performance review and link to this article, maybe we can drop this 'tradition' after one (miserable) attempt? Or .. I post it on our Yammer. God, we're a hip company..

The thing to remember about performance reviews (especially for technical people who's responsibilities don't change that much) is that your first one takes forever to write, but then you can copy-paste from year-to-year.

And that it's impossible for the people who place stock in them to distinguish earnest buzzword-laden self promotion from mockery, so have fun with it.

The headline is a little misleading: they got rid of annual performance reviews in favour of more frequent performance discussions.

I'm working for a startup building a performance plan/review SaaS app and we've always tried to encourage customers to use 3-4month reviews periods — but almost all are wedded to the idea of annual reviews.

If you're stuck on an annual cycle, at least make sure the manager and employee have regular meetings so those goals and the current progress are frequently in the forefront of their minds. There's no point getting to December and then remembering what you and your team were supposed to be doing

Don't set 2 A4 pages full of "goals", including unverifiable stuff like "maintaining a happy, positive atmosphere" like my managers at IBM did. Set 3-4 clear goals with defined metrics (hint: if there's not a metric to measure, it's not a goal). Some goals are also amenable to breaking down into milestones.

The problem with setting very concrete goals like this, is that whenever you don't precisely meet them, they can be made to be a knock against you. As a result, it's then in your interest to set goals that are as easy to achieve as possible. I can't imagine that aiming for mediocrity serves the company or the employee well.

Yup. And after getting dinged once or twice in a review, metrics get gamed consciously or unconsciously. The mind tends to avoid pain.

If management lays down some metric like "higher velocity by 20%" or "20% more bugs closed", don't be surprised when they get it and it turns out to not really be effective. (From imperceptible Story Point Inflation to 20% more technical debt, or bugs mysteriously skipping the bug tracking system...)

And setting vague goals which may, or may not, have been achieved is better for the employee or the company?!

But you're right to an extent, and I skipped over it. There's a class of things (call them skills, behaviours or competencies) which aren't suited for evaluation through measurement: "teamwork", "leadership" etc. These are not goals and it's important to understand the difference. For competencies it's best to evaluate them on a simple scale (say 1-10, we don't even label the exact score) so the discussion naturally becomes a bit fuzzy and less concrete — because the concepts are fuzzy. Let's be honest, you want employees to improve in these competencies but there's really no effective way to evaluate them.

Plans and reviews should be driven by the measurable stuff (goals) and the employee's development is driven by discussions not scoring of their skills/competencies/whatever-you-want-to-call-them

Also, the outcome when reviewing a goal doesn't have to be a binary achieved/failed. You could have something like failed/nearly-met/met/exceeded/wildly-exceeded

> Since the new system was implemented, involuntary departures have increased by 50%: this is because...the new system requires executives and managers to have regular “tough discussions” with employees...rather than putting them off until the next performance review cycle.

Hrm. 50% increased firings seems kinda high to blame entirely on frequency of review. Were these guys bad and the managers just didn't realize it under the old system? Or do they always fire one unlucky guy every review cycle and just do the same thing but more frequently now?

I know a few people at Adobe so this is anecdotal, but I was under the impression from them that turnover was pretty low, so I'm curious if the % looks a little inflated just based off the relative numbers.

So, after actually reading the article:

Adobe had a dysfunctional system were managers were not giving any feedback during the year, waiting for the annual performance review.

So essentially no management at all.

That's pretty typical, in my experience, actually. This is true even when 1-1 meetings are scheduled more regularly. Management has a vested interest in making sure that their department budgets are large, but that their payroll budgets aren't, and protecting the company (for small-ish companies) or their managers (in larger corporations, where 'departments' are better thought of as companies-within-the-company, and managers' managers are the 'owners'). With the possible (and infrequent) exception of front-line managers, an employee is going to do better for himself if he assumes the relationship with management is more adversarial than collegial.

"...an employee is going to do better for himself if he assumes the relationship with management is more adversarial than collegial"

It's sad, but I wish I knew this (or maybe convinced myself to believe it) sooner in my career. Young professional tech people are too naive/trusting to know better. Glad and happy I went independent, cause that kind of environment just doesn't align with my values :)

Annual Performance Reviews is one of the reasons why I chose to be a consultant. Really. I always have a smile on my face when my boss announces the dreaded annual review time in a meeting and then looks at me and goes "Not you of course". Love the feeling that I don't have to worry about that crap.

You may not like Adobe for many reasons but this move is definitely worth a welcome. It is high time companies stop this madness of "annual performance reviews" which really does not mean much.

""The aim is to give people information when they need it rather than months after teachable moments have passed,"

Exactly. You just cannot sit down one fine day (read: end of the year) and discuss the performance for the entire year. Just does not work for human beings like that. We are good and bad on different days. Some days, we are ultra productive, some we just slack off. I would rather have my team/manager talk to me more often about what I am doing right when it actually happens. Same with what I did not do well at the time when it happened. This gives me the opportunity to learn quickly.

The end of year discussion in reality is more like "I do not really know the details of what you did exactly but I know you were ok for the most part. Here is a couple of things you can change, blah blah. You get a satisfactory rating blah. " That's for most of us. A few unlucky ones get the shorter end of the stick "We have to fire the bottom 5% and we thought you are one of those. Not much specifics specially compared to co-workers"

I want real metrics and feedback to be incorporated in my review. Not the end of year survey sent to a few people I choose who will mostly say good things about me (hopefully). By real feedback, I mean the email that my customer sent saying "You saved my life today. You are awesome". This email should be filed/shared with my manager who will then know the background of why the customer said so. stuff like that is real feedback.

The biggest problem I see with performance reviews is the fact that there is no way to compare my work with my co-workers in terms of effectiveness, customer satisfaction and quality delivery. I m not saying that it should become a competition of who is better but there must be a way to tell me that someone else did a better job at xyz while I was really good at abc.

"It also bolsters accountability because managers have far more responsibility for setting employee compensation than under the old system"

This. A 1000 times. It is sickening to hear the same old argument from your direct manager that "sorry if I could, I would give you a better raise. But my hands are tied because I am told so". One huge reason why I quit working fulltime and became a consultant. You pay me what we agreed and I live with it. When my contract rolls, I might ask for a raise and if you decline, it is my choice to stay or move on. Either way, no one is forced into anything.

Couple of others useful links with details on this:

[0] http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/view/story.jhtml?id=534355695&

[1] https://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/tag/performance-review

The problem is that healthy teams already give feedback at teachable moments. The whole point of a Performance Review Process is to force unhealty teams into barely acceptable behaviors, and provide a thin veneer of justification for compensation choices made by management.

Such a process should be designed to minimize the damage of fraud, not try to somehow trick people into being mature teammates.

What is worse about performance reviews is the categories tend to change from year to year. Sometimes if not always the first time an employee is made aware of a category is when the review forms land on their desk. Its even worse for self review companies. Then you have those which declare all that "below expectations" ratings is the new normal as no one doesn't have an area they cannot improve.

All in all, what a great way to demoralize your people and what a rotten tool to give to groups of managers to take out their pettiness against those they dislike. Hint, groups are meaner that single reviews.

I agree 100%. Annual performance review is stupid. Not only that, at my old work, we had mid year review.

It may be just me but feel like performance review has stuck around as long as it has because 'HR' says so...

And as another data point, I, too, left to be a consultant for exactly that reason. My happiness skyrocketed once I could concentrate on doing the job as well as I could, and forget all the other stuff.

This certainly is good improvement. However ,for this method to work you really have to have good manager who understands issues, have vision and puts Org. interest and employees interest before self interest. Since I started my career I had couple of selfish , egocentric and narcissistic managers ( mostly Indians, sorry but truth) who literally tried to block my career path. So I would suggest not just have everything done by your manager , which apparently leads to bureaucracy, rather have at least another check ( another manager, group) review what your manager is saying.

Why is it relevant to say they were Indian? As if your anecdotal experience says anything about managers or Indians in general

My comment was in general what I think could be better way for evaluation and while citing that I phrased my personal past experience with Indian managers. It was no way on stereotypical side.

So, nobody commented on this..

"Once a year, managers make adjustments in employee compensation".

Performance reviews are supposed to be a two way street. We talk about if the employee is adding value to the company, how both parties could improve to create more more value, then negotiate how much the company will pay to have the employee stay.

Sure give feedback early and often. You really should be talking every day with your manager in the daily standups.

But lets be honest, if you are still only doing annual pay reviews there is still just one meeting a year that matters.

Alright, well I suppose I'll play the role of contrarian.

Performance reviews should be given in the context of preset goals. Without defined goals, a review is pointless. You might as well be commenting on the weather for all it is worth.

I break my goals up into three general categories when I give them: tactical, strategic, and developmental. Tactical items are boring shit, do your job, close your tickets, answer the phone, etc. Strategic goals push the business forward, assist on a project, visit a customer, or implement a new thing. Developmental goals are all about you: attend some training, mentor a peer, or learn a new thing.

Goals should evolve with the employee. Have you just started? I'm giving you goals to familiarize yourself with the business. Sit with the CS team, the sales team, or some of the product meetings. Have you been here forever? I'm giving you responsibility to mentor peers, do some lunch and learns, or take on a new project. Craft goals for your team to fill gaps in the team's capabilities and to shape key employees for advancement.

Performance reviews aren't inherently bad, they provide a really clear milestone or report on how you're meeting these goals. We'll talk about them weekly during our one on ones, but this codifies what we've been discussing into something more tangible. They're where the rubber meets the road and seeing yourself rated on your goals really calls attention to performance.

Reviews and goals may sound like corporate bullshit to you, but that's just because your manager sucks. I've had several excellent managers who leverage goals to push me towards new opportunities. My reviews are largely a formality, I know where I stand with my manager, but I don't think that's the case with most employees. Perhaps I just haven't been burned badly enough by bad managers in the past.

> Performance reviews should be given in the context of preset goals. Without defined goals, a review is pointless.

The last time I worked as a permanent employee, yearly appraisals were built out of three factors:

a) Performance against defined goals.

b) Helping the company meet its social programme.

c) Moving the company forward.

... with the last two undefined. People could go into their appraisal with all their defined goals met, only to be told they'd only got 1/3 of what was needed.

Just before I left they changed it again to stress they wanted everyone to go above and beyond, so simply meeting your objectives would in future get a "progressing" result, which was below average. There was, literally, no way to guarantee a favourable result without playing politics.

That said, however, I don't think I'd like the solution where the system just works better. My ideal solution would be to have no annual goals or targets at all (which is the position I'm in currently as a contractor).

I don't think it's an understatement to say that my opinion is that metrics are amongst the most evil things ever invented in the corporate world, and frequently the root of all trouble.

In case that seems a hyperbolic statement, I'm thinking for example of the sub-prime issues which almost brought down the world financial systems and was in my opinion caused by the needs of some managers to put sales figures above ethics to make their yearly targets.

This is a good idea but requires a far better quality of manager. The question is whether a company can find and promote and train them to make good decisions all up the chain (assuming each manager level does the same thing all the way up to the President or CEO). If this doesn't work you wind up with cronyism.

It's striking to me that I've never seen or heard of a performance review process that allows for employees to provide feedback on how well their manager is doing. Sometimes a manager is just not a good fit for the group that they're managing, and like all people they too make mistakes, but all the efforts to "measure" things does not apply to them, which I can't imagine should exist in a universe that has the word "fair" in it's vocabulary.

Really? I know at Microsoft (under the old system, at least) I was asked for feedback on my manager to give to his manager every year.

Oddly enough, Microsoft has always had this for as long as I've worked there (and seemingly far earlier than that).

Hilarious - I was wondering where Microsoft copied this system from. This is exactly the new Microsoft system.

I dunno... given the perpetual problems with Flash, the password leaks, etc., I wouldn't hold up Adobe as a paragon of excellence.

That's essentially an ad hom. Their product ability has nothing to do with the merits of the HR.

The measure of good HR should be a successful company.

The measure of a good janitorial staff should be a successful company.

So Apple has the best HR?

Quite possibly. Certainly I'd be interested to hear if there's anything unusual about their HR practices.

It's pretty notable, given that Adobe is a fairly large and well known company that is dropping performance reviews altogether.

Sounds similar to what Microsoft did a few months ago: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/12/5094864/microsoft-kills-s...

"That is her picture, to the left"? Uh... awkward?

Performance reviews are terrible, because there will always be error, and people who are overrated get complacent and those who are underrated get pissed.

If the manager's any good, people know how they're doing. Okay, so what if the manager's not good? Then the employee's performance, if low, isn't really his fault.

There's not much upside to reviews, because companies will either (a) find ways to give bonuses and advancement to top performers regardless of what they formally score, or (b) won't, but reviews won't help them.

They exist for two reasons. One is to intimidate people. But that just doesn't work. Intimidating people into working hard leads to a useless product. The second is to generate a paper trail before firing people. But I think PIPs and performance reviews are a really bad solution. Better is to fire as soon as the problem is evident and irremediable, but to give severance instead of the 2-month "walking dead" phase in which he shits all over morale.

The worst thing about formalized reviews is that they inhibit internal mobility. Top performers don't want to leave, for fear of risking a bad review. But in most companies, no one wants to take on the 80% of people who are "just average", even if they might become A players on a better-fit project. That makes departmental residency permanent and causes the "warring departments" phenomenon for which Microsoft is known.

Heh. Performance reviews in Adobe:

"Hmm.. a new security flaw in flash every day this year. Well done, bonus for you!"

The purpose of performance reviews should be to change behavior. If neither the manager or employee leave the review with a plan to do something different than they did before the review, then it effectively accomplished nothing.

Anything that doesn't create action is just noise.

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