My manager literally said in a meeting that she has never given an Exceeds. Seems to track as before joining this company, I've always gotten very high performance marks but since coming here, it's always Meets. Does anyone have similar stories? I only started reporting to this team this year.
27 replies (most recent on top)
@zy 2 million dollars is nothing to this company. They will gladly pay that in a fine than “do the right thing”. Which is d-mb as they will milk a COC initiative for 20k that isn’t even worth the administrative hours to complete just to deny patients something they need This company is so whacked.
@OP Jeeze retired two years ago as a Director and nothing has changed. Just about everything said in this reply string is true, how can that be you ask, some of it conflicts? Well it just is and that’s without the other gaslighting about “bad time”, “new leadership” too many other teams hit homers this year”, focus on those values”, focus on that culture”, we are instructing every manager to give everyone at least one 2 this year”, “ no one doesn’t have room for improvement”, “your long tenured team is too high on salary maximum for zone, BUT no promotions available right now, hiring freeze, movement freeze, promotion freeze”, “hey I’m a VP and I only got a meets”, “meets in the new exceeds”, “just focus on that 9 box skills matrix, McKinsey is GOD”, lather, rinse,repeat! They had some pretty smart girls and boys at the top 20 years ago, been heading south with each corporate and ELT name change since. What a ch--d rodeo. Good luck, you truly are lucky to still have a job though if you do. After the last get rid of everyone that knows anything about the business or has institutional wide knowledge and replace them with anyone who once had “digital” in their CV or now “AI”. Best of luck!
@ty with all due respect you saved your VP job once and this company 2 million dollars and you didn't even get an impact award? wow - 2 million dollars and a VP job should be worth at least a gift certificate. And you are still here - hard to believe headhunters are passing you by or you are saying no? Math is not mathing for me
In my >20 year career, i've only gotten an Exceeds twice. First time I saved my VPs job and the company 1M. That year I got an Exceeds. The next year I got a Meeting. Then 2 years later I got an Exceed again for finding a major issue and saving the company 1M again. That was the last time I got an Exceeds.
I doesn’t matter how hard you work, volunteer for OT and holidays or volunteering 24+ hours in your community. The bottom line is the managers are allowed to give 1 exceeds in their department (if even that). That’s what they are told to do. The same thing with merit increases. And the way the economy is these days you’re lucky to get a 1% increase. My merit increase was actually .99% That’s how cheap this company is. The morale is great here! (Joke). So why try?
@h6 I had a Manager that did have a recalibration meeting with all the other managers that reported to the Director and they actually discussed between them all. I mean each director does it differently but this is how I learned about recalibration meetings. I guess other managers I didn’t report to didn’t like me and this is how I found out. My manager told me this
@h0 when managers get into their recallibration meetings? What? This is hysterical -
You complete your spreadsheet - it tells you if you are at the "approved percentage" of each category - you keep working it until it is "green" and you submit to the next level. Managers don't "meet" to discuss a dam thing except on the side to talk about what BS this all is-
if your next level needs their total direct reports # of each category to change - you get asked to "move someone up or down" by that person -
@ge I don’t think manager gave her less than she deserves. The system in general only allows for a small number of exceeds and when managers get into their recalibration meetings other managers can tell personas manager why they think employee doesn’t deserve it and it gets knocked down to meets expectations. Blame the system not the manager.
@gt Really? They censored the word "Ba----G"? Wow.
@f2 Unfortunately,, it appears as though your Manager succeeded in manipulating into thinking that you ate less and deserve less than what you are truly worth.
Children learn at a very early age how to manipulate their parents into getting what they want. Well, as we age we continue to learn how to manipulate others until we master the art. And Managers and Directors, especially the people ones are particularly in the type of role where they learn how to become master craftsmen in the art of manipulation.
Do not allow them to question yourself about your worth. Also, we should not be comparing outcomes to other employees but rather to whether or not we believe that we are exceeding expectations of the work responsibilities having been asked for our particular role.
I had a manager ask if I really thought I "exceeded" compared to what my peers have done. I was the only one in the team with my function and scope. I guess they were referring to others in the department but I don't know what they work on. learned my lesson then.
I had a stafff VP tell em he gave everyone a 3 since it don’t matter on merit increases.
@dn I give myself meets. I see no point in doing otherwise; I know I'm going to land on meets regardless - at least I don't have to hear about my lack of self-awareness. Or just as bad, "I thought you deserved exceeds too, but as you know, I'm only allowed to give one."
@cj I did the math this year after my impressive 1.5% merit increase, following another on the pile of floridly complimentary reviews.
Though I'm currently earning 25K more than I was some years back, with inflation and ever-increasingly worsening and more expensive medical, I'm exactly where I was before (if not a little worse off).
It's to the point where I dread my reviews, not because of my disappointing "raises," but because I feel bad for the managers who have to deliver them. I know they'd do better if they were allowed to. We both have to pretend this is great news, when we both know it's insulting.
In multiple categories, I receive exceeds. In a few, I meet expectations. However, my overall score is always meets. At this point, I have accepted it’s not achievable.
@dx Yeah, cannot win. If in a self evaluation you give yourself “exceeds” you get accused of being “lacking self awareness.” If you give yourself “meets expectations,” then your leaders will “agree” with you and follow suit and give you the same.
It is a rigged system.
@dn Yep. Now you get how the game is played.
I have been told in the past that I deserved an 'Exceeds' ranking for all of the extra work I carried during the year, but unfortunately, all they could do was rank me as 'Meets'. My extra work didn't include bootlicking. I guess that is the part where I missed the 'Exceeds' ranking by the manager....
@dd wow reductive much? "Full grown adults" care because this "arbitrary ranking" is tied to moneyyyy, even if less than your cited .5%.
That's a couple hundred (or thousand!!), depending on base. Can make a big diff to someone in need.
I feel this pain. I gave myself high ranks in past years during the self assessments because I was told I achieved more than the expectations my leadership set out, only to be told I don't have "self-awareness" if I think I should have assessed myself that high. So are we all just giving ourselves Meets?
We’ve pretty much been told that exceeds is only for 1% of our group. Which means one person. And I know of one person in my group that spends after hours and weekends working and honestly, I believe that person deserves the exceed. At the same time it’s ridiculous to set a goal for employees and then tell them there’s no way for them to achieve it. If 99% of us can’t get that rating, especially those of us who saved the company a significant amount of money or perform heroics. It feels insulting to then get a Meets. As if to say, my performance is the same as someone who did the bare minimum and gets a meets.
Exceeds are only given to a set number of associates across the entire org. It’s not that managers don’t want to give that ranking, we cannot!! Literally cannot. With that, the raise difference between meets and exceeds is literally less than .5%. If you think there are “big raises” happening in this company, you’re delusional. But I also find it very very odd, full grown adults, put so much weight into an arbitrary ranking. It marked absolutely no difference at the end of the day. It’s a participation trophy and some of you all are showing why they’re not the best idea overall.
If you know you are never going to get more than a C grade - then you should never give more than a C level of effort. The people who get an A are ar-e kissers who take credit for other people's work and who just state the obvious. Summarizing what needs to be fixed is not the same as fixing things. My favorite was the people who had the urgent Thursday meetings to dump all the action items on others because they took every Friday off. Phone it in- work on getting some certifications and making your resume look better for your next job.
I am only allowed to have x number of exceeds and usually 1 significantly exceeds - this is nothing new. Managers get grief from staff every year why they can't exceed, when they are also getting meets standards for working their azz off. And in many cases they are not making much more money that some line staff.
Most people have accepted this dysfunctional process since they cannot change it. What they can change is the attitude - you give me meets standards and that is what I work to. Not a bit more because it is not worth it. And merit raises of 2% is a bigger joke. If you have worked here for more than 10 yrs. your salary is higher because the merit used to be much much larger - you are paying for it now - you are close to the top of the range so you get scraps.
Exceeds is for the a-s kissers that leadership wants to give big raises to. It has nothing to do with performance. The whole process is a scam. Don’t get caught up in it. I
They are discouraged from giving exceeds, and when they do, it's often kicked back by HR. There's only a small percentage of exceeds allowed, and they have to be able to back it up.
At a certain point a few years ago, they started the gaslighting thing of "make no mistake, a meets expectations means you're doing great!" It wasn't like this prior to the current leadership.
The higher your rating, the more the algorithm assigns for your merit and bonus, so they're artificially lowering it.
It's entirely possible your manager has her own lofty standards, but the company would hang them on her even if she didn't.
Don't worry, her husband is probably cheating on her. It's also impossible to get above a 3 here so don't even bother trying.