How to deal with a VERY UNFAIR performance review?
In March, I joined a strategy & corporate development team of a F500 company as a first year associate.
My firm has a yearly performance review system that distributes all associates, company wide, into four buckets:
- Outstanding (top 5%)
- Distinctive (next 10%)
- Good (mid 70% - basically average)
- Issue (bottom 15%)
During the year, I felt like I performed very well, doing a better job than most associates in my class and sometimes even receiving responsibilities more similar to VP-type of work.
On top of this, I also did several informal feedback sessions with all the VPs, Directors and MDs that I work with (note that these were structured sessions lasting 30 to 60 mins, not just a couple of exchanges over a coffee chat) and in every session I received very positive feedbacks, where only minor improvement points were barely highlighted after I proactively asked about them.
On performance review day, I get the news from my Director that my official review "needs to be formalized as Good" because of some BS reasons that are completely outside of my control and in my view unrelated to my performance (e.g., I have less than a full year of tenure in this role, or reviews need to be normalized company-wide and so not enough spots were assigned to my team). Not a single word has been mentioned as to what could I have done differently to achieve a better performance/rating, or what associates with a better rating do better than me. When I asked about these, I was re-assured that everyone in my team knows I'm a very strong performer and that the rating only depended on the factors above, outside of my control.
Now I'm left very very pissed, as this will have a negative impact on my bonus (not announced to me yet) and even more importantly on my odds of promotion when my cycle comes in a couple of years. In addition, it just sucks to see some clearly incompetent colleagues get my same rating, or even a better one.
What would you do in my position? Happy to hear any words of wisdom from folks who have been through similar experiences.
TLDR: received very positive feedback all year long, everything indicated I was on path to be reviewed as a top associate. On performance review day, I'm told I need to be rated as "average" because of factors unrelated to my peformance. Seek advice on what to do next.
Welcome to corporate America
This shit happens. I don't see how this affects your promotion chances that are a few years away to begin with since your group acknowledges you're a top performer, just new to the role. If you're in a small group the top two buckets could be 1-2 people and their reasons are legitimate. Keep doing what you're doing and try not to obsess over these things, the $5-10k bonus difference is immaterial
Word of advice on office politics: Never trust a word anyone says unless it’s in writing or in an official setting
This is corporate America in a nutshell. The only way to get ahead of the games is to jump ship.
It's entirely possible the dolts that you work for see you as a threat, and therefore didn't rate you as highly but also not so poorly (i.e. "average")
Corporate may just rate everyone who joins within the year as Good (my old F500 did that when I was on the strategy team). I’d be less upset if your boss / team pull for you comp wise so would suggest waiting till you get that number and then see what the full outcome is. If it’s baked in that all first year reviews are capped at Good, chances are, it won’t impact any odds of promotion down the line as those doing the promoting will see it as a stub rating so to speak. Had a similar thing happen to me with the review but my team made sure my bonus correlated to the highest category given performance.
Tenure matters a lot more at certain places. But yeah it’s bullshit since you joined in March
Did you tell them you quit ?
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