Anonymous wrote:+1 I'm with you, OP. I've been nominated for an award. My reward is that now I need to write a bio and essay that meets very specific requirements to support it. It all feels very awkward and fake. Plus I'm not really anxious for the attention. Thanks boss!

As a boss, I can say that I have worried over whether or not to submit people for awards. I have a very, very capable but very, very introverted employee who had an amazing year, and I had the opportunity to nominate them for an award that included a cash bonus. Ultimately, I decided that they money was worth the five minutes they'd have to spend walking up to accept the award (thankfully, I wrote the rec - no need for self-promotion), and basically told them as much. They won, blazed red for about five minutes shaking the executive officers hand at the reception, and cashed their check. And agreed it was worth the momentary discomfort.

I have a canned one I pretty much cut and paste from year to year. It always starts out “In 201X, I continued to maintain high levels of competency, efficiency and excellence in [role] while focusing on [company’s] internal and external interests. Although my full accomplishments are detailed below, I would like to highlight as follows...”

I then do a top 10 list of what I’ve done over the year. Further on in the performance management tool, I give more details in responding to the objective questions. I’ve had numerous managers tell me they liked the format because it helps them write their part of my review. No one has ever noticed I am basically regurgitating from past years.

They are the worst. I work on a lot of long term (multi year) projects, so while there is incremental progress every year there’s rarely anything I can tout as an accomplishment. Just “progress.” Ugh.

Anonymous wrote:They are torture. My sympathies!

+1 part of why I like being a contractor. I hated this part of being an employee.

+1 I'm with you, OP. I've been nominated for an award. My reward is that now I need to write a bio and essay that meets very specific requirements to support it. It all feels very awkward and fake. Plus I'm not really anxious for the attention. Thanks boss!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My analyst submitted his review with 2 sentences and misty perfect ratings. Anything will be better than that!

oops should have said mostly perfect ratings.

Shoot, I really hoped you meant "misty"

Anonymous wrote:My analyst submitted his review with 2 sentences and misty perfect ratings. Anything will be better than that!

oops should have said mostly perfect ratings.

My analyst submitted his review with 2 sentences and misty perfect ratings. Anything will be better than that!

Anonymous wrote:The opportunity to write your own evaluation is fantastic -- I always do it, and I am shocked when some of my reports don't do it.

First, it doesn't have to be flowery. A list of your accomplishments should be adequate. Self-evaluations exist because your boss can't remember what 15 different people did for a whole year: you need to remind her. Obviously, this means you should keep your own list, or brag sheet, during the year. If you haven't been, make that a new practice for 2019.

Second, it sounds like you are being given company goals to meet. This is great: it means you have an outline for what they want to hear. Take your brag sheet and sort it into their categories.

Third, Amazon is full of books on how to write these better, most available on Kindle for immediate download. Go crib some phrases. I have a paper copy of "Performance Appraisal Phrasebook" on my desk to help me write evaluations for other people.

This is pretty much the only reason I do them because I feel bad my boss has a lot to keep track of with 10 direct reports. That said, my job is really just about meeting deadlines and identifying certain issues so it is hard to do anything that has a major impact. I feel like I am half-assing it when I basically write that I do my work on time and I identify the various issues of the day.

To the PP, do you have any recs on books that are focused on the employee side?

They are torture. My sympathies!

The opportunity to write your own evaluation is fantastic -- I always do it, and I am shocked when some of my reports don't do it.

First, it doesn't have to be flowery. A list of your accomplishments should be adequate. Self-evaluations exist because your boss can't remember what 15 different people did for a whole year: you need to remind her. Obviously, this means you should keep your own list, or brag sheet, during the year. If you haven't been, make that a new practice for 2019.

Second, it sounds like you are being given company goals to meet. This is great: it means you have an outline for what they want to hear. Take your brag sheet and sort it into their categories.

Third, Amazon is full of books on how to write these better, most available on Kindle for immediate download. Go crib some phrases. I have a paper copy of "Performance Appraisal Phrasebook" on my desk to help me write evaluations for other people.

Find someone to help you next year. I help my dh every year.

That sounds like the adult version of college essays.
BARF.

This won’t help now, but I save my evaluations each year so I can use as a jumping off point for the next year. It definitely sucks if you’re in a non-qualitative role where you can easily toot your own horn - I.e., I brought in an additional $1m in revenue, etc.

I hate the end of the year and having to write my self evaluation. I am already late submitting it because I hate doing it so much. My issue is that I am just not great at writing. I am not someone who can spin my accomplishment to make them look wonderful or pull out great examples or my success and how I have helped meet company goals and all the other random categories they want us to comment on. ugh.. I just want to submit my crappy self evaluation so I can be done already.

Rant over. Need to finis this thing so I can show my face at work tomorrow