Tips for Performance Evaluations

Prior to the performance evaluation season getting into full swing, your employer will probably provide all employees with a timetable detailing all of the components associated with the performance review process. For instance, you might get a list of the dates when you should submit a self-evaluation, when your supervisor will be drafting your performance review, and the time frame in which performance reviews should be completed, etc.

Always keep your eye on the schedule and be mindful of due dates. If your employer requires you to submit a self-evaluation, make sure to take this submission seriously. Don’t just throw something together the night before your self-evaluation is done because you’re assuming your supervisor will already have a detailed list of your achievements for the review period.

Instead of relying on your supervisor or manager, you should keep your own notes that highlight your achievements and accomplishments. For instance, you should have been tracking how you met or exceeded the goals and objectives you and your supervisor agreed upon for the current review period. If you were supposed to take on writing assignments, you want to make sure to highlight how many writing projects you had with a brief description of the nature of the assignment.

In addition to maintaining thorough notes and making sure to detail this information in your self-evaluation, you should also provide your supervisor or manager with a list of coworkers, task leaders, project managers, etc. that can provide insight into your performance for the review period. You should try to create a 360 degree picture of your performance by including staff you may have supervised during the review period (even if you weren’t their official supervisor, but supervised portions of their work or performance on a task), staff that were equal level to you/counterparts on a project, as well as staff that you reported to on assignments. Including different levels of staff will help ensure that you get a well-rounded review. This assumes that your supervisor intends to give you a well-rounded review, instead of a review that is skewed or incomplete.

Never make the assumption that your supervisor knows the scope of work you’ve performed, even though they approve all of your projects in advance of you commencing work with other staff.

I had a supervisor that would approve me to work on an assignment, but she had no clue regarding the specifics. This was especially true, when the nature of the work changed based on a client request to take a different approach on a task. So, what my supervisor may have believed would be a pretty straight forward project, could have turned into a complicated task that far exceeded her expectations of the work I was doing. Her lack of knowledge was even greater, when the task leader I worked with was a member of another department. Although I kept her informed of any changes, there was really no way to guarantee that I would get full credit for substantial work performed throughout the year, without reminding her.

That’s why it’s very important to keep thorough notes on your performance and to provide your supervisor or manager with a list of staff, who can provide objective input into your performance. Some supervisors are lazy and will not seek out complete information regarding the performance of their subordinates. Instead, they might speak to one or two people and think they have a complete picture of how a subordinate performed their work, how they behaved with other staff, and how successfully they communicated with other staff, etc.

Meanwhile, other supervisors may write a review for a certain employee intending to skew the review in a negative fashion based on perceptions (true or false) or any number of factors. That’s why you want to provide a list, in writing, of those workers who can contribute to your performance review. You should try to force your manager into a more active role as far as soliciting input into your work. This is especially true if you know your supervisor is the type to write your review relatively independent of outside or contrary points of view.

Your reviewer/supervisor should be a knowledgeable informant on your work performance, the nature of your assignments, your behavior, communication skills, etc. Help your supervisor fill any gaps in their knowledge about your work. Don’t help your supervisor write an unfair, unbalanced, fraudulent or incomplete review. Be proactive! Your review impacts your promotion opportunities, salary increase, and perceived value at the company. Take it seriously and be prepared!

Handling Performance Evaluations - Part III

Continuing with the tips and suggestions for handling performance evaluations, we continue with Tip #7:

Tip #7: If your employer demands you sign a negative performance evaluation, sign your performance evaluation with stipulations/comments. When people get performance reviews they don’t agree with, they’re often never really sure if they should sign the evaluation or not. But, the reality is that signing your review simply means that you’ve read and understood the contents of the performance review. It is not a statement of agreement. But, that doesn’t mean your employer won’t try to play your signing the review in that way.

So, I always suggest that you sign the review—if you must—but, that you write (underneath your signature line), “I have read, but do not agree with the content of this performance evaluation. I will be submitting written documentation to support my opposition to certain aspects of this performance review with the anticipation that the review will be amended.” Or, you can write something along those lines. Write in the borders of the review or write in the white space of the review. But, do not write in the empty space on the back of the review/page, which can be missed, ignored, more easily erased, etc.

The fact of the matter is, your employer can’t take a review (signed in the manner above) and then, later, try to insist that you read your review, understood it, but didn’t make any written or verbal complaints after receiving the official feedback.

Tip # 8: Prepare a formal written response. If you’ve received a negative and/or fraudulent performance evaluation, don’t forget to follow up your disagreement with the content of your review with an official email or memo to your reviewer, supervisor and/or manager. Have as many meetings as necessary to work out any issues. Ask for your review to be amended. Provide documentation to prove that your point of view is correct. Ask coworkers and other managers you’ve worked with for written statements about your performance.

This is best done on the front end of a performance evaluation, as I’ve written in the past. Always give thank you emails or congratulatory emails (sent to you from clients, coworkers, etc.) to your reviewer, supervisor, and/or manager throughout the performance review period. This lets them know you are consistently doing a good job and makes it harder for them to set you up during your actual performance evaluation. If you don’t give positive feedback you’ve received to your supervisor or manager during the year, give him/her a full copy of your kudos in the week or so before they are scheduled to draft performance reviews for their subordinates.

Tip #8: If your supervisor or manager doesn’t want to discuss amending the review, go to Human Resources! Ask for a meeting to discuss your official evaluation. Be prepared to offer solutions to resolve the problem and to correct the performance evaluation. Have a list of people that can support your strong and positive performance during the review period. Point out every area of disagreement with the review. Don’t rely on general complaints or statements. Talk in specifics about what is wrong with the review, why it is wrong, how you can prove the error, and what can/should be done to fix your review.

Tip #9: Request that HR conducts a formal investigation, if the accusations in your performance evaluation are extremely egregious and could result in employment actions, such as a suspension, demotion, salary cut, probation, termination, etc. Prepare your direct and circumstantial evidence of misconduct and/or violations of performance evaluation guidelines or corporate policies and procedures on the part of your reviewer, supervisor, and/or manager. Your official complaint should clearly justify why an investigation is warranted, who should be questioned about the facts, and the reasons you suspect racism or other illegal misconduct (harassment, retaliation, etc.) on the part of your reviewer, supervisor, and/or manager. If HR agrees to investigate, find out the timing of the investigation, who will be interviewed (look for anyone with a conflict of interest, grudge against you, etc.), and learn about the appeal process, should you not get a decision in your favor.

Remember, it’s your performance evaluation. The review will impact your career, your promotion opportunities, your yearly salary increase, bonuses, and could impact your overall treatment at work and, more specifically, within your department.

Don’t let false, harassing or retaliatory comments remain in your performance review. Even if you transfer to another department, that review will follow you throughout your career at the company. Stand up for yourself. Fight for a fair and equitable review process and a truthful review.

Handling Performance Evaluations - Part II

Continuing from yesterday’s post, we’re starting with Tip #4 for handling performance evaluations:

Tip #4: Ask lots of questions! You don’t have to sit in a performance review meeting simply accepting every word that’s said as if you’re sitting in front of the Burning Bush—instead of in front of your supervisor or manager! You have a right to ask for specifics about the statements being made about your performance, you have a right to explain your side of the story in any incident being used against you, and you have a right to ask for the project names and any other information regarding allegations that you are a poor performer or have engaged in negative behaviors, etc.

You can ask questions about anything you want AND your supervisor or manager should have the answer—immediately. They should not have to go talk to anyone to learn specifics. If they have included information on your performance evaluation, they should be able to back it up—on the spot—or there should be conversations about removing the comments from the review. It is not inherently plausible that a supervisor or manager is unable to provide a worker with the specifics about rude, intimidating, unprofessional, or any other negative behavior. Similarly, a supervisor or manager should automatically have the answers regarding missed deadlines, sloppy work/lack of attention to detail or any other performance-related issues.

If your supervisor or manager can’t answer your questions about their critiques of you, you may have a serious problem and you should question who wrote/shaped the content of your review. Ask your supervisor or manager what the issue is regarding their problem with memory recall of your performance or behaviors.

Tip #5: Ask for examples! Don’t allow your supervisor or manager to make blanket statements about you, your work or your attitudes/behaviors. If they want to attack it, they should own it! In other words, if your supervisor or manager wants to make a vague criticism, they should be willing to go as far as they have to in order to prove the criticism is legitimate. On a performance evaluation, every critique and every compliment is used to give your performance evaluation an overall score/grade. That is how many employers decide on an employee’s yearly salary increase, promotion eligibility, etc. Employers look at the overall performance of an employee and they compare it to the overall performance of other similar employees. Every critique adds up—against you!

If you hear something and you don’t know what your supervisor or manager is referring to, ask them, “Can you provide an example of when I allegedly behaved that way?” Get examples because your supervisor or manager will be held to the examples and justifications they’ve provided against you. By asking for examples, it forces your supervisor or manager into a position they may be uncomfortable with, but too bad. Many people don’t like to be questioned, just as a matter of course. Many people believe that their authority, words or commands should be accepted at face value. But, you have a right to ask for examples. Your supervisor or manager took the time to criticize you—in writing—at your yearly review. Therefore, he/she should take the time to defend the content of the review and to make sure you understand where you’ve allegedly gone wrong.

How can you gauge your progress towards correcting negative behaviors or poor performance if you don’t know what the exact problem is because you’ve never been given an example of what you’re doing wrong? How can you improve? You can’t! Without examples, you’re being set up for failure and possibly just set up! Blanket statements can be used to ensure that you are denied a promotion, etc. If you have a racist manager, you can be sure they’ll do whatever they can to make sure they further any goals they have against you—as a minority employee.

Ask for examples. If your supervisor or the company comes up with different “examples” to use against you at a later date, it will make any adjustments to their rationale/story very suspect!

Tip #6: DOCUMENT EVERYTHING!!! If your supervisor or manager says anything strange or makes very harsh critiques of your work performance, behaviors or attitudes—that you believe are completely baseless—write down the exact quotes. I don’t care how hard your supervisor or manager watches you move your pen over your notepad. Write everything down. You may need exact quotes at a later time. Hold your supervisor or manager accountable to everything they’ve said.

In my case, when my supervisor created a mid-year review process, simply to attack me and discriminate against me for another race-based incident at work, she wouldn’t document the content of the fraudulent mid-year review I received. Therefore, I didn’t get a copy of a performance review to sign or keep for my records.

The day before my year-end review, my employers changed the personnel manual to state that supervisors could give “informal” reviews anytime they chose to and they didn’t have to provide a written component for the review. In other words, this justified the lack of documentation for that retaliatory mid-year review. However, I wrote like a fiend. I captured every attack made against me and I submitted a complaint the very next business day. Regardless, the company changed the policy to cover their tracks AND…

My employer only referred to the “2nd half of the review cycle” throughout my year-end review. At no point during my year-end review would either of my supervisors or the HR Representative in attendance talk about the mid-year review. I was told, “That’s old news. We want to move past that.”

Always document what’s being said to you because, even if you do receive written documentation of your performance evaluation, it doesn’t mean that there is consistency with what was written and what you were told. Some supervisors and managers are willing to go out on a limb with what they say, compared to what they write or document. So, document everything!

More tips will be provided tomorrow.

Handling Performance Evaluations - Part I

Sorry for not posting this morning. I lost my Internet connection and couldn’t restore my service before leaving for work. Anyway, here’s today’s post…

In the past, I’ve written numerous posts about negative performance evaluations and I’ve provided some suggestions for performance reviews. The reason why performance evaluations are heavily covered on this blog is because some people in the workplace are very good at hiding the real motivation behind their actions against Black and other minority employees—racism.

Anyone, who is under attack at work, must show that the reasons their employer has given for the "special attention" are nothing more than a pretext to hide their real motivation—active racism. This can’t be stressed enough. It is up to you to point out the lies and inconsistencies being offered by whoever is attacking you on the job.

Performance evaluations are a great way for a racist to hide their motivations for stifling the career of a Black or minority employee, to justify any negative employment actions they’ve taken against a Black or minority employee, and to set the employee up for future employment actions, up to and including termination. Empowered racists in the workplace (those with authority to direct the work of others, to suggest tangible employment actions, such as suspensions and demotions, etc.) heavily rely on their ability to corrupt the legitimate processes, procedures, and policies at a company for their own evil purposes. And, performance evaluations are a favored way of accomplishing many goals, when it comes to harassing, retaliating against or discriminating against Black or other minority workers.

Many racist managers make it very clear, when a minority worker is going to receive a negative review. These managers spend a lot of time laying the groundwork to provide a horrible review to minority workers. So, many Black workers are not surprised to walk into a review and hear all manner of falsehoods, misrepresentations, etc. regarding their performance and behavior during a review year. But, sometimes, there are surprises.

In my case, my supervisor created a mid-year performance evaluation process that was unprecedented. The sole purpose of the review was to retaliate against me to for providing truthful testimony in an investigation involving a Black manager. So, she decided to give me a very negative mid-year review at a company that never gave mid-year reviews. And, she followed it up with a very negative year-end review.

So, don’t make any assumptions going into a performance review meeting. You never know how it will turn out. So, it’s best to prepare for the best or worst case scenarios. Keeping that in mind, here are some tips for handling performance evaluations:

Tip #1: Know the performance evaluation guidelines at your company! If the guidelines aren’t included in the personnel manual, find out if there is other documentation and ask HR for a copy. You have a right to know the standards and criteria that will be used to judge the performance of EVERY employee. Without knowing the standards, you won’t know if you are being treated equitably and fairly, compared to other staff.

Additionally, knowing the guidelines for performance evaluations will help you hear anything “fishy” that’s said and can help you spot violations of corporate policies. For instance, your performance evaluation guidelines may state that recency errors shouldn't negatively impact your review. Therefore, if your supervisor is putting extreme weight on something that happened in the weeks prior to your review AND you never had a problem such as that, your supervisor may be engaging in recency error. This means that your review is being skewed towards the most recent negative behavior you showed as opposed to reflecting the entire review period—as it should!

Tip #2: Ask for a copy of your draft performance evaluation—in advance! Some employers allow employees to see a draft copy of their performance review in order for employees to prepare notes and questions for their performance review meeting. If policy allows you to see an advance copy of your review, make sure you do! If your supervisor doesn’t mention this, ask for a copy of your review. You don’t have to provide any other reason for seeing the review, except that you are entitled to a copy of the review (assuming it is in the policy/guidelines) and you want to be prepared for your review meeting.

Tip #3: If you don’t get an advance copy of your review, ask for a copy of your review AT THE START OF YOUR PERFORMANCE EVALUATION MEETING! Many managers like to read the review to employees and provide them with a copy of the review after the review meeting. However, a person can read a review anyway they want to make it sound one way or another. Your supervisor can read you a watered down version of the review. Or, your supervisor might skip several key and highly critical sentences contained the review. This might be for malicious reasons or this might be done because your supervisor doesn’t like confrontation, etc. But, you don’t know what the review says unless you read it yourself.

Remember, you are usually expected to sign the review before you leave the performance evaluation meeting. There’s not a scenario where you’re asked to take the review home, think about the content, sign it, and return it to your boss. You shouldn’t have to skim the review at the end of the meeting because your supervisor allegedly read the entire thing to you. I think we all know that supervisors usually want us to rush through the reading of the review and to just sign and get out of their office, so they can do the next review or just be done with the process. But, you should be able to completely read the review—AND ASK QUESTIONS. And, there shouldn’t be an issue with you reading the review as your supervisor is discussing it/reading it aloud. You can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Many more tips will be provided tomorrow. Stay tuned…

Tips for Fighting False Allegations About Your Job Performance

When companies, managers, etc. decide to target an employee, particularly one with a positive reputation and strong work ethic, one of the first things they often do is to begin making sudden and extremely strong criticisms of that person’s job performance. So, a person that is respected and valued by their colleagues, may suddenly find their supervisor claiming they have a bad reputation around the company, that no one wants to work with them, and that their job performance has become a significant issue and liability for the company.

I’ve had this tactic used against me and have seen it used against other Black employees. In one case, a Black male was complaining about discrimination and sexual harassment, in another case, a Black manager was the victim of retaliation for complaining about racially insensitive remarks made by a White manager, and, in my case, I participated (truthfully) in both internal and external investigations about these race-related issues. So, retaliation—among other things—was the company’s response to me, when I came up for a promised promotion.

I’d like to give you some quick tips on dealing with false attempts to slander your reputation, regarding your work ethic. These things worked well for me.

--Quote from performance evaluations. Use all relevant comments about your job performance that show you have a pattern of successfully and professionally performing your duties. Don’t forget to pull out quotes that speak to your personality/temperament at work. For instance, you could quote from a recent performance review where you are credited with being patient and flexible, which contradicts a sudden and false accusation that you are rigid and demanding.

--Print up copies of emails or cards that speak to your job performance, especially kudos from clients. This will also demonstrate you have a pattern of successfully and professionally performing your duties and that staff are aware of your positive contributions to your projects/assignments.

--Get signed statements from coworkers that show you are successfully performing your duties. If possible, get your coworkers to have the statements notarized.

--Print up requests for you to work with other staff – why would you be invited onto projects if it were known that you were underperforming?

--Ask specific questions about all blanket statements about your job performance. For instance, do not let someone accuse you of being rude without asking for examples and situations where you’ve supposedly shown this behavior.

--If someone is suggesting you have a pattern of exhibiting poor behavior or poor performance, ask (in writing) why this issue is just being brought to your attention and why you were not offered any suggestions for improving your performance. Remember, if you are not told of performance issues, and are, therefore, led to believe that there are no issues, you can’t accurately gauge your performance and live up to the expectations of your position. So, the onus for the alleged issue being a so-called continuing problem is on your supervisor/manager because they did not inform you of any alleged problems at work.