And are they told to always include negative info?
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Managers aren’t told to always include something negative. They’re not supposed to surprise you during your review either. Anything they talk about, they should already have discussed with you and talked together about how you’re going to work on it.
It’s going to depend on your manager and your relationship with them, how much they advocate for you in the conversations about your pay and bonus, where they have to compare you to other people. And there’s that pool they have to work with for compensation, which they have to divide in a way to reflect what the strongest performers deserve. If your boss’s boss isn’t a fan of you, that can be not great.
I had a toxic boss who, during quarterly convos, would throw in something that happened the day before (so, not during the actual quarter we were talking about), and it would be something I didn’t even agree with sometimes and would say that, but it would still make it into the write up. That’s not really normal. Same boss once told another team member they were “too positive” in their self-commentary and should include something negative. That’s not normal though. There should be discussion of progress against goals, sure.
No we don’t get guidelines like that. But if there’s something we need to coach you on, we will. What concerns do you have? I’ve been rated highly as a manager, maybe I can help.