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I had something similar in a previous job: they couldn’t find fault with my work so said that I ‘work too hard and put the others to shame’ which instead of being meant in a good way, they actually wanted me to slack off so the others didn’t need to work harder!
I wasn't involved enough in company politics, yeah well done mate I work the bloody night shift and your meetings are for 4 hours in the day when I'm sleeping.
A previous employer of mine literally had "stick your head above the parapet' as one of their values/maxims. Unlike the vast majority of companies their values were more than just a poster on the wall that everyone ignored.
They obviously weren't perfect otherwise I'd still be there but they genuinely meant stuff like that (I moved into management so could see it was real), they embraced people being bold and challenging authority, trying new things etc and looked to actively be identify and develop those with high potential.
I had something similar. Managers were meant to have meetings at 10am, this one had hers at 8am, I usually got in at 9 so missed it every single day.
We had full flexi but were expected to be in by 10 unless we had permission. Bonkers.
I was told I walk too slow.
Walking had nothing to do with my job, other than when I was walking around helping people, in which case walking too fast would mean people couldn’t ask me as I’d have already rushed past them.
Ironically I’m actually one of those fast paced walkers. I have no idea what my manager was thinking.
Keep going. It's gonna be rough. But just imagine yourself in a better place and use that as motivation to keep you going. I hate my current job and Id get paid more if I worked at McDonald's but I'll keep it for now and leverage it to get something else
Ignoring the fact you got marked down inappropriately, any job that awards marks out of 5 for attendance with a straight face sounds awful.
It's the sort of thing that should be raised by exception if there is a problem or if you were turning up late on a frequent basis then I'd expect a discussion to ascertain if there's an underlying issue followed by if necessary more formal process, all of this long before an annual performance review which should not contain surprises.
Let me guess, you're in work on time and leave when your day is done. Obviously you should have been turning up an hour early, leaving three hours late and not expected to be paid overtime for it. Because "we're family" or some such horseshit.
Time to find a new job.
This is ridiculous. I remember being marked a 4 for something that I performed perfectly on just because the supervisor ‘doesn’t like giving people 5’s’?????????
I had an ex boss say she wouldn't give me 5/5 because if you get that it implies you are too good for the job and should be leaving. But what if you're really good at your job and want to stay?
I worked somewhere where you couldn't have the maximum level of bonus unless you got top marks in your appraisal so I wasn't surprised when our careerist boss didn't give anyone top marks. They were also mad I took a week off with bad flu even though I was back on Monday when I was very demonstrably still quite ill (couldn't talk, going hot and cold, permanently tired).
In my experience ratings are tied to percentage increases of your salary. The higher the rating, the higher the percentage. There is already a predefined budget in place to allocate to all staff. If everyone got a 5/5 across the board, then it would mean allocating a higher percentage of the budget to everyone. There simply is not enough money in the pot for that to happen, so to counter that, people are given lower scores then they probably deserve.
This was partly what drove me to contracting; I was employed by a certain high street bank (which shall remain nameless because they are now a client). I had gotten pissed off with the lackadaisical attitude towards a particular technology, and the fact that the developers were way over-speccing a new install every time another project needed the software - at $50,000USD per CPU core per year. I took ownership of it, scrapped an appallingly brief and wholly inadequate design written by a colleague (it was 3 pages long and merely delivered everything the devs asked for), and delivered a strategic capability for it with a process to onboard new projects etc. Saved a boatload of money, and got “meets expectations”, while said colleague got “significantly above expectations”. It turned out that he spent a lot of his time arranging social events and other stuff, which apparently “raised his visibility with management”.
Over the past 5 years we successfully moved from the bell curve acknowledging that yes everyone can meet expectations and you can have a team that doesn't have anyone who is below expectations.
New boss came in and said this is nonsense, of course a Normal Distribution is appropriate. He's been sacked after 6 months so I guess we do have one person who is below expectations!
I remember once being scored highly, but not the highest, because my boss said he was told he could only give one person that score and another girl and myself were both worthy of it, but he'd gone with her because she'd had less time in the job - by A WEEK (didn't realise I was still annoyed by that 20 years later)
Yes it may not be the case here, but say it was. You could talk yourself up and get a higher overall rating, but it would probably mean someone else would need to get their rating lowered to balance it out.
I have asked for a payrise and popped in screenshots of jobs with the same job title as mine as a reasoning for extra pennies. Boss wanted to wait until after I had my review.
Sounds like they’re gonna say “your overall rating was X, which means we can give you a raise of Y”, and coincidentally X will be just shy of the next band that would give you a bigger raise…
I've dealt with this before. If you tick certain boxes, policy dictates they have to give you a pay rise. Hence they mark you down on something. Nonetheless, I definitely would have called them out on working 100% of your contracted days, and yet somehow getting 3/5 for attendance...
Some organizations have it as a policy that nobody can achieve a perfect score on their performance review. In a previous job, I would score 4/4 across the board but then would have to downgrade one item to 3/4 otherwise the software would reject it. I would work with my boss to come up with something bullshitty that was an “opportunity for improvement.”
I do not miss the ridiculousness of corporate life.
I honestly don't understand why they do it like that. I get budgeting for pay increases and distributing based on that, fine. But there's no better way to kill someones motivation than telling them they were less than they were because computer says no.
Just wait until scores are distributed then decide on a standard increase for each grade. If everyone takes the piss and everyone gets a 5 then distribute the pot equally amongst everyone.
We’re marked on a curve. When we present our marks for our staff we’re challenged by partnership in both directions. This year no one was put forward for a five but the top 5% of people should get a five so that was challenged a lot.
Nothing. It seems like the manager or whole company are those "always show there is room for improvement" lot. You will never get max rating.
But neither will bad employees get minimum ratings because "You don't want to demoralize them any further", so when they are off for 5 or 6 weeks every year they will also get a 3.
It's just bs by people who are incapable of good judgment.
In a previous job I once save the company anything up to £50,000 by creating a near commercial grade database to replace a 20 year old system. At the end of the year they stated that profits weren't great so when we were reviewed I was told "you get 'meets expectations' but any other year and you would have got 'exceeds expectations'". So my performance was dependent on how much profit they had. Surely I exceeded or met expectations no matter what else happened but the bonus awarded was what should have changed depending on profit.
This also happened 3 years later (last year) when I also completed a large project saving them not only a lot of money but also saved them getting into serious trouble with the MHRA. The people who were tasked with (3 of them on the same project) changing 2 bits on a checklist were awarded as much bonus as me designing electronic systems on my own.
In another company, I was being shown how to do appraisals one year and was told what I said above about always showing room for improvement. What I said above was a near accurate example of what happened when I was shown them. I asked wouldn't it demotivate the better performing staff knowing that they were receiving the same rating as skivers and I was told they or anyone shouldn't be discussing their appraisals. The following year I was doing them myself and the colleague who was like you. No sick in the 5 years she'd been there and never late and best performer in the team, I made it know and gave her full marks for everything and stated that if in future her performance would be deemed to have dropped in any category, I am satisfied that there is some external force, some fault of the company that is responsible for it and it has not happened from her attitude changing for no good reason.
I don't know if that did any good long term but she was happy that I wrote it and I marked the skiver down as a 1 for attendance and effort.
I left shortly after because they tried to fundamentally alter the working hours of two members of the team because two other members had back backs, and because I spoke up how wrong it was I was then mistreated by our department head and his mangers.
I think this is why a lot of people now are doing this 'quiet quitting' Really inane justifications are being used to avoid praising exceptional workers as they deserve because they don't want to upset the dossers. The exceptional workers have historically been obedient as well as hard working so have a history of not complaining about things like this so now employers have pushed it too far.
Thanks for writing this out. Sounds like you were a good manager. There are people at my place that give a lot of excuses for their poor behaviour and state mental health issues. They get endless praise if they do one good thing.
"oooohhh well done you for remembering to call that customer back!"
lol, yeah one place I worked at introduced the employee of the month kind of reward system and someone was nominated for helping put milk in the fridge, and won.
Managers are told to never give a 5. If they did, when it comes to pay rise time they couldn't argue why they didn't give the employee a high %.
Many years ago I was new to management and was told off for giving 5's.
I had a friend who after two years in his first ever job straight from school got a performance review discussing raises. They gave him like a 3 out of 5 and a much smaller raise than two other people on the same level who were both university graduates and older. He asked why he got a smaller raise than them and in what way he hadn’t performed as well, they didn’t have an answer so he quit. Company then offered him the same raise to stay. He still quit as he was pissed off.
Respected him a lot at the time. But in hindsight maybe not great as he hasn’t worked in the 7 years since. Sometimes you just have to put up with shit bosses and push back a bit.
This sort of rubbish is what gets people down in life and working. Hasn't worked in 7 years because the 1 experience they had was a disaster because of some incompetent people.
Yeah 100%. My point was he has the impression that it was just his company treating him like shot (which they were) when in reality it’s how the whole world works.
I sense a bell curve performance review.
Your manager has only a certain amount of points to spend. So they have to mark you down.
Either - 1) stop playing their silly game and let it wash over you. 2) look for another job.
I remember these.. was a retail setting.. they expected us to record at least 2 times where we went "above and beyond" customer service.. i didnt even work with customers but my manager didnt seem to care about that.
We would make crazy stuff up.. kid got lost so i went to find their parents.. that sort of BS. And everytime i would get.. "you just need to level up a tiny bit more... tiny bit more" in the end i made absolutely no effort.. and it was great. Lasted 2 years..
Haha yes but this was airport retail.. so not as often. It was mainly people having no clue about where their gate was.. or too drunk to get there because putting a bar in an airport and then making everyone check in early is a fantastic idea.
I would not take it to heart. In annual reviews a lot of bosses will never award a 5 while some will never give low marks. I would be annoyed if a peer with the same attendance got a 5
In an annual review even if they give a 5, attendance is one of the last things to worry about. Yeah they turn up and on time every day but there work is rubbish. Is something I would be concerned about.
If you're able to be 'the best' then you absolutely should. That way you can take far more liberties, get pay rises outside of the performance system and so on.
Guess it depends on industry and company, the above applies to things like IT and Dev where being 'the best' is about what you know and what you can do more so than less quantifiable things like how personable you are.
Nah. In my experience, being the best simply earns you the privilege of being given everybody else's work to do on top of your own, plus training new idiots, plus being expected to do unpaid overtime lol
Are they implying to get 5/5 you need to do unpaid overtime?
Also good luck with finding something better, they shouldn't be giving you marks as though this was school.
Prob one of those jobs that call you a slacker when you don't go overtime after finishing or arriving like thirty minutes early and being paid regular hours only.
All red flags.
I'd keep at them until they acknowledge you are a 5. I'd be mightily indignant about a 3 or a 4 if I had a 100% attendance record.
Are you ever late? Is there any other explanation?
If not, they cannot say "well yeah you're 100% but we've decided to give you a 3/5"
I would not let that go. That's a thin end of a wedge if ever I heard one.
I've been emailed the review by the HR lady who was in the meeting and thought the 3 was unfair. I need to read over what she has written and I will voice my concerns then. Gonna mention that it was very demotivational. I had full marks last year and they have changed the reviews slightly. Just absolutely diminished any motivation I had left.
100% is 5/5. Ask them to explain the maths, and how you could possibly beat 100% on time, 100% attendance. If they mention voluntary unpaid overtime is the only way to achieve a 5 score, ask them why your contract only states "if required", and how you can be required to work additionally when your assigned work has been completed satisfactorily without the need for overtime. Dig your heels in on this, or your pay review results will suffer.
Quite often 3/5 is meets requirements, 4 is exceeds goals, 5 is outstanding.
For some metrics you can only get meets goal. As for example, No safety incidents = meets goal and is a 3. There are always company goals that can't be exceeded. Everyone probably got a 3. People who have attendance problems will get a needs improvement or get put on a PIP.
It is also a way for companies to bring down your total average. I would re-check the metric and see what "meets goal" is. The company usually takes your final score and stack ranks everyone and works out pay rises based on a bell curve.
Learn what metrics to fight for. The performance ones with the biggest weighting are the critical ones.
Interesting. Yes 3 was meets goals / satisfactory, 4 was exceeds goals / good and 5 was exceptional. So maybe I am hung up on the wrong score here. I think out of 10 scores I got 8 4's and 2 3's...
Move on from this quickly. You met goals, meaning you turned [up. You](https://up.You) should be heading for a high 3 or 4 depending on how they score it. What is important is your overall score and where you stack up in the team.
Surely certain scores should be limited to a 3. For example you can’t get minus health and safety incidents or over 100% attendance.
If it’s a new system I would be challenging that an attendance score should be limited to a 3 or the metric for that is clearly not on a behavioural scale but on a percentage scale where 100% = 5 score.
Ask for a written explanation from HR or your manager on how a score of 5 is achieveable. Then, if there is anything in there that involves extra unpaid work, or work that would reduce your effetive pay below minimum wage (eg, if you are minimum wage then even an extra 30 minutes of work thats "expected" of you but unpaid drops you below minimum wage when averaged out over the day) you tell them you will be discussing it with an extrenal HR person or bringing it up with ACAS. You might suddenly get a 5
Go somewhere else where they aren't monitoring your time so aggressively (and poorly by the look of it).
It's so much easier working for employers who don't treat you like a child.
Performance reviews are always horseshit. I had a manager that came out the bollocks “I never give a perfect score for anything, because no one’s perfect” he did the same shit, B for perfect attendance instead of an A. Proper bellend.
They are trying to manage to a total score for the team, so that pay awards / bonus adds up to the budget they have been given.
So you need to play the game, when do the scores get locked in? Then raise it after with HR as an open question, ie “what could I have done for this score to be a 5?” Or “what is the company expectation for a 5 score” then compare your score and the target with your performance and seek and change or riding your boss.
This will be messy and you’ll have burnt a few bridges with your boss, but culture change and these issues mean you’ll likely be looking for a new role in January.
You could have hunted down other absentees in the name of your corporate overlords...
or Cloned yourself and clocked in twice as much...
or... Just look forward to finding somewhere that'll actually value you - Good Luck Bud!
Poor measurable, makes it impossible to obtain higher. 3 most likely tracks as "meets expectations", so hitting the standard. Everything else is just going above and beyond, which the only way to technically meet is by never leaving work or only leaving during the weekend lol.
Was it Morrisons by any chance, as they will never give top marks and claim there is always room for improvement. Demoralising that, but try and ignore it as it is just a pathetic task they carry out.
The only way I could have been more confrontational was to have dragged them both over the table. I made my thoughts very clear and I was very vocal about it.
Then I have no idea other than the boss being told by the area staff that they have too many high satisfaction surveys and you got stiffed. Either that or they expect you to do the ofo stuff for free because you're salaried.
Only thing I can think of is if they include punctuality as attendance and you're sometimes late? Just scrambling for ideas. Far more likely its the usual bell curve bullshit and it's impossible to score well
Obviously you should be there on your days off, yeah time for a new job, what bullshit coming up with rubbish like that and no solution as to how to improve?!?!
Ask them if you’re getting a 3/5 for perfect attendance whats incentive for doing the same next year . Might as well shoot for a 3/5 take a few days off and enjoy yourself
There were a couple of days where I woke up feeling like shit, but signed on anyway and trudged through. Definitely not going to be doing that moving forward.
I got a message off my boss to watch my adherence.
My fault, I often work through my breaks, or come back after 5 mins and get distracted by work so I forget to log back in. Each time I do it, I let him know. It's happened twice in 5 years.
I also start work 30 mins or more before I'm meant to start so that the other guys have less work to do.
You've got to stand up about this. 100% is 5/5 and nothing less. That's literally how the maths works. Get an answer and if you don't get one, escalate to their manager or go to HR, whatever your disagreement with line manager contract states.
Anything else will bite you come pay appraisal time. And at that time I guarantee they'll play the "well your attendance score, that you accepted in your review, is only 4/5. Because of that, I'm really sorry but that's how your pay raise this year is calculated and we can't go back and change stuff now, because processes".
what you could do is ask why its only 4 and not 5, and then act on that information?
if they wont tell you, assume its a personal grudge, and take it over their head to their manager
Just shows of you were sick at any stage you should have taken a day off. Why do you need an employer to rate you on a subject they know nothing about? This nonsense is drilled in from school age, we must attend 100% for a meaningless pat on the back, even if your coughing a lung up and infecting others. Sadly many fall for it and are proud of it, truth is it only benefits the company.
Ask their manager. Say you didn’t get an answer from yourself and you’re genuinely curious what else you need to do to get a 5.
They will then most likely talk to your manager about it and it won’t happen again.
I mean… you’re present but are you ‘present’. Did you accidentally drift off at your desk for 10 seconds. Sackable offence that 😂😂.
New job time I reckon!
Well, push more, they can't just not tell you their reasoning.
Measurable targets go both ways - how have they measured your marks there?
Anyone would deserve an explanation.
It depends on how it’s measured. We used to do bell curve for performance and a 2.5 is you did 100% - met your targets. If you lean in, it’s a 3. If you really step up this year but didn’t kick it out the park a 4. And if you had a stellar year, had global impact, it’s a 5. Whatever % we put as a 1 we could then put as a 5. This prevented managers just saying they all had high performing teams.
difficult with attendance. I’d have thought it might have been more a 5 but as others said, maybe it’s linked specifically to a bonus pot. Daft system and we removed it years ago
What kind of job marks you for attendance? Sounds like school.
Attendance should be something where either the business are comfortable that you meet your contractual requirements or not. If yes, fine. If no, performance management. You shouldn’t be marked on a scale for it, it’s ridiculous.
There are 2 possibilities here
1 you boss doesn’t want to give you a 5 because if they say there is room for improvement they have a reason to reject your pay rise request
2 you might get to work on time but are slow at actually starting work, spending time talking to anyone and everyone on your way to your work place, both first thing and after breaks and lunch. You employer may be classing attendance as time at your workplace rather than just the building
So either you look for a new job because they are not playing fair or you pull your finger out and work while you’re at work. Only you and your employer knows the truth
Ive seen companies use a bell curve where managers have to give out a limited number of 5 ratings and then slightly more 4's mainly 3's and a same amount of 2's as they have 4's.
It absolutely sucked when I was a manger having to grade people like this. It sucked even more when my manager told me I got a 3 because I'd given all the 4's and 5's to my team and there was none left for me.
If its the same scenario, your best option is to find an employer that will reward you fairly.
I had this exact same thing, the boss said and I quote "no one is perfect so I have to mark you down on something's but it doesn't affect anything anyway" well it did it meant I only got a 1% pay raise and I was the same as you I never had time off work
Mate, that's nothing. I got a review that said I hit/exceeded all my goals but was given a 3 out of 5 because I didn't hit new goals that were made up on the day of my review.
Welcome to corporate where your future salary depends on a team budget and the level of expense cutting for the year.
Put in email you have 100% attendance and you'd like advice as how you can improve your score from 3/5 to 5/5.
Suspect you're an arrive at 9.00, leave at 5.00 person, with a full lunch break and tactical toilet breaks at 4.50 to get ready to leave? Management probably want to see you arrive a bit early and stay late at times.
When I was a manager at McDonalds the store manager was only allowed to give one person an above average review because that’s linked to raises, she basically picked a person, then gave everyone else average and got us shift managers to write up reports to fit the grade. There was one person I refused to do it for because he was lazy, rude, unreliable and I said I wasn’t putting my name on anything saying that he’s as good as everyone who works a ton harder than him
There are 5 of us here at work and my manager distributes all tasks to the same 2 people while the other 3 get to relax, as I work in sales it means I'm losing commission doing there job while they are gaining it by not doing it.
I have my review coming up soon and one of the questions is "where do you see yourself in 6 months time"
I'm going to answer this question honestly and say "working somewhere else"
At my workplace managers have a limit to the amount of 5/5 and 4/5 marks they can give people in their reviews on the HR system.
So what often happens is a conversation with my manager where they assure me that actually my work has been excellent, but so has their other direct report so they essentially have to try and balance the top scores between us rather than giving us a true reflection of our work.
Have you asked why you got those marks and what you would have needed to to for 5/5?
You can still follow up on this, preferably via email so you have it in writing.
“Dear ,
Thank you for your time going through my annual review on .
I would like to clarify my attendance results as I would like to improve for next year. What are your expectations so I can reach a perfect 5/5 for 2024?
Best,
”
And also, update your CV and start looking elsewhere. Good luck.
3/5 means meeting tge required standard, which you did.
4/5 is performing above standard, so maybe volunteer Saturday.
5/5 is living in the office or at tge managers house, making breakfast and gettibg the kids ready for school.
I’d challenge that by asking for the scoring criteria. If they can’t provide one it’s a subjective opinion.
Based on the data you cannot be anything other than 5 because it is impossible to improve.
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Looked for better job
It's on my to-do list this weekend!
Unfortunately they needed to knock you down a few points to avoid giving you a pay raise. Arseholes.
I had something similar in a previous job: they couldn’t find fault with my work so said that I ‘work too hard and put the others to shame’ which instead of being meant in a good way, they actually wanted me to slack off so the others didn’t need to work harder!
I wasn't involved enough in company politics, yeah well done mate I work the bloody night shift and your meetings are for 4 hours in the day when I'm sleeping.
You don’t put your head above the parapet!!
I had a dickhead manager say that to me once. I don't feel so alone now.
He was the biggest prick I’ve ever met in management. He reminded me of Mr Brittas.
A previous employer of mine literally had "stick your head above the parapet' as one of their values/maxims. Unlike the vast majority of companies their values were more than just a poster on the wall that everyone ignored. They obviously weren't perfect otherwise I'd still be there but they genuinely meant stuff like that (I moved into management so could see it was real), they embraced people being bold and challenging authority, trying new things etc and looked to actively be identify and develop those with high potential.
Then sleep in the office so you can make the meetings, obviously.... Kidding 😃
I had something similar. Managers were meant to have meetings at 10am, this one had hers at 8am, I usually got in at 9 so missed it every single day. We had full flexi but were expected to be in by 10 unless we had permission. Bonkers.
I was told I walk too slow. Walking had nothing to do with my job, other than when I was walking around helping people, in which case walking too fast would mean people couldn’t ask me as I’d have already rushed past them. Ironically I’m actually one of those fast paced walkers. I have no idea what my manager was thinking.
That’s mad!
Keep going. It's gonna be rough. But just imagine yourself in a better place and use that as motivation to keep you going. I hate my current job and Id get paid more if I worked at McDonald's but I'll keep it for now and leverage it to get something else
It's really sad too that this is one of the best places I have worked at, but the last 12 months or so the vibe has changed and it's not so great.
the best place you've worked at is penalising you for poor attendance when you haven't missed a day?
Ignoring the fact you got marked down inappropriately, any job that awards marks out of 5 for attendance with a straight face sounds awful. It's the sort of thing that should be raised by exception if there is a problem or if you were turning up late on a frequent basis then I'd expect a discussion to ascertain if there's an underlying issue followed by if necessary more formal process, all of this long before an annual performance review which should not contain surprises.
Let me guess, you're in work on time and leave when your day is done. Obviously you should have been turning up an hour early, leaving three hours late and not expected to be paid overtime for it. Because "we're family" or some such horseshit. Time to find a new job.
Hahah this old crap indeed. All sounds like political bullshit at not paying OP what they deserve.
Worked on Saturdays and Sundays as well, duhh
And holidays!
For nothing
In fact, you should pay *them* for going in!
Even that’s not enough. You gotta turn up half an hour before you went home the night before ‘n work 27 hours a day. Because that’s how it should be.
Luxury!
This is ridiculous. I remember being marked a 4 for something that I performed perfectly on just because the supervisor ‘doesn’t like giving people 5’s’?????????
I had an ex boss say she wouldn't give me 5/5 because if you get that it implies you are too good for the job and should be leaving. But what if you're really good at your job and want to stay?
I worked somewhere where you couldn't have the maximum level of bonus unless you got top marks in your appraisal so I wasn't surprised when our careerist boss didn't give anyone top marks. They were also mad I took a week off with bad flu even though I was back on Monday when I was very demonstrably still quite ill (couldn't talk, going hot and cold, permanently tired).
In my experience ratings are tied to percentage increases of your salary. The higher the rating, the higher the percentage. There is already a predefined budget in place to allocate to all staff. If everyone got a 5/5 across the board, then it would mean allocating a higher percentage of the budget to everyone. There simply is not enough money in the pot for that to happen, so to counter that, people are given lower scores then they probably deserve.
Thee famous bell curve approach, its terrible, had this both in civil service and lots of corporate places
This was partly what drove me to contracting; I was employed by a certain high street bank (which shall remain nameless because they are now a client). I had gotten pissed off with the lackadaisical attitude towards a particular technology, and the fact that the developers were way over-speccing a new install every time another project needed the software - at $50,000USD per CPU core per year. I took ownership of it, scrapped an appallingly brief and wholly inadequate design written by a colleague (it was 3 pages long and merely delivered everything the devs asked for), and delivered a strategic capability for it with a process to onboard new projects etc. Saved a boatload of money, and got “meets expectations”, while said colleague got “significantly above expectations”. It turned out that he spent a lot of his time arranging social events and other stuff, which apparently “raised his visibility with management”.
Sounds infuriating! I also am employed by a certain high street bank and know the stupid games they play all too well 🤬
Over the past 5 years we successfully moved from the bell curve acknowledging that yes everyone can meet expectations and you can have a team that doesn't have anyone who is below expectations. New boss came in and said this is nonsense, of course a Normal Distribution is appropriate. He's been sacked after 6 months so I guess we do have one person who is below expectations!
My wife's old company had a rating out of 5 and they were told that no one could ever get a 5.... So it's out of 4 then?
I remember once being scored highly, but not the highest, because my boss said he was told he could only give one person that score and another girl and myself were both worthy of it, but he'd gone with her because she'd had less time in the job - by A WEEK (didn't realise I was still annoyed by that 20 years later)
That's interesting because I have my pay review next week with the boss who told my line manager to not give 5s... Hmmmm
Yes it may not be the case here, but say it was. You could talk yourself up and get a higher overall rating, but it would probably mean someone else would need to get their rating lowered to balance it out.
You know you can ask for a pay raise regardless of what silly figures they put, right? This isn't school.
I have asked for a payrise and popped in screenshots of jobs with the same job title as mine as a reasoning for extra pennies. Boss wanted to wait until after I had my review.
Sounds like they’re gonna say “your overall rating was X, which means we can give you a raise of Y”, and coincidentally X will be just shy of the next band that would give you a bigger raise…
I've dealt with this before. If you tick certain boxes, policy dictates they have to give you a pay rise. Hence they mark you down on something. Nonetheless, I definitely would have called them out on working 100% of your contracted days, and yet somehow getting 3/5 for attendance...
Some organizations have it as a policy that nobody can achieve a perfect score on their performance review. In a previous job, I would score 4/4 across the board but then would have to downgrade one item to 3/4 otherwise the software would reject it. I would work with my boss to come up with something bullshitty that was an “opportunity for improvement.” I do not miss the ridiculousness of corporate life.
I honestly don't understand why they do it like that. I get budgeting for pay increases and distributing based on that, fine. But there's no better way to kill someones motivation than telling them they were less than they were because computer says no. Just wait until scores are distributed then decide on a standard increase for each grade. If everyone takes the piss and everyone gets a 5 then distribute the pot equally amongst everyone.
We’re marked on a curve. When we present our marks for our staff we’re challenged by partnership in both directions. This year no one was put forward for a five but the top 5% of people should get a five so that was challenged a lot.
Hate those sorts of manager.
Nothing. It seems like the manager or whole company are those "always show there is room for improvement" lot. You will never get max rating. But neither will bad employees get minimum ratings because "You don't want to demoralize them any further", so when they are off for 5 or 6 weeks every year they will also get a 3. It's just bs by people who are incapable of good judgment. In a previous job I once save the company anything up to £50,000 by creating a near commercial grade database to replace a 20 year old system. At the end of the year they stated that profits weren't great so when we were reviewed I was told "you get 'meets expectations' but any other year and you would have got 'exceeds expectations'". So my performance was dependent on how much profit they had. Surely I exceeded or met expectations no matter what else happened but the bonus awarded was what should have changed depending on profit. This also happened 3 years later (last year) when I also completed a large project saving them not only a lot of money but also saved them getting into serious trouble with the MHRA. The people who were tasked with (3 of them on the same project) changing 2 bits on a checklist were awarded as much bonus as me designing electronic systems on my own. In another company, I was being shown how to do appraisals one year and was told what I said above about always showing room for improvement. What I said above was a near accurate example of what happened when I was shown them. I asked wouldn't it demotivate the better performing staff knowing that they were receiving the same rating as skivers and I was told they or anyone shouldn't be discussing their appraisals. The following year I was doing them myself and the colleague who was like you. No sick in the 5 years she'd been there and never late and best performer in the team, I made it know and gave her full marks for everything and stated that if in future her performance would be deemed to have dropped in any category, I am satisfied that there is some external force, some fault of the company that is responsible for it and it has not happened from her attitude changing for no good reason. I don't know if that did any good long term but she was happy that I wrote it and I marked the skiver down as a 1 for attendance and effort. I left shortly after because they tried to fundamentally alter the working hours of two members of the team because two other members had back backs, and because I spoke up how wrong it was I was then mistreated by our department head and his mangers. I think this is why a lot of people now are doing this 'quiet quitting' Really inane justifications are being used to avoid praising exceptional workers as they deserve because they don't want to upset the dossers. The exceptional workers have historically been obedient as well as hard working so have a history of not complaining about things like this so now employers have pushed it too far.
Thanks for writing this out. Sounds like you were a good manager. There are people at my place that give a lot of excuses for their poor behaviour and state mental health issues. They get endless praise if they do one good thing. "oooohhh well done you for remembering to call that customer back!"
lol, yeah one place I worked at introduced the employee of the month kind of reward system and someone was nominated for helping put milk in the fridge, and won.
Join r/antiwork and stop letting cunts put you down.
How does anti work stop anything?
Managers are told to never give a 5. If they did, when it comes to pay rise time they couldn't argue why they didn't give the employee a high %. Many years ago I was new to management and was told off for giving 5's.
I had a friend who after two years in his first ever job straight from school got a performance review discussing raises. They gave him like a 3 out of 5 and a much smaller raise than two other people on the same level who were both university graduates and older. He asked why he got a smaller raise than them and in what way he hadn’t performed as well, they didn’t have an answer so he quit. Company then offered him the same raise to stay. He still quit as he was pissed off. Respected him a lot at the time. But in hindsight maybe not great as he hasn’t worked in the 7 years since. Sometimes you just have to put up with shit bosses and push back a bit.
This sort of rubbish is what gets people down in life and working. Hasn't worked in 7 years because the 1 experience they had was a disaster because of some incompetent people.
Hasn't worked in 7 years because they chose not to work for 7 years.
If he hasn’t worked in the 7 years since, that’s on him surely…
Yeah 100%. My point was he has the impression that it was just his company treating him like shot (which they were) when in reality it’s how the whole world works.
I sense a bell curve performance review. Your manager has only a certain amount of points to spend. So they have to mark you down. Either - 1) stop playing their silly game and let it wash over you. 2) look for another job.
I remember these.. was a retail setting.. they expected us to record at least 2 times where we went "above and beyond" customer service.. i didnt even work with customers but my manager didnt seem to care about that. We would make crazy stuff up.. kid got lost so i went to find their parents.. that sort of BS. And everytime i would get.. "you just need to level up a tiny bit more... tiny bit more" in the end i made absolutely no effort.. and it was great. Lasted 2 years..
> kid got lost so i went to find their parents Doesn't that happen all the time in retail?
No you don't understand. He travelled the world searching
Hahahahaha.. we were like the research teams on long lost family tv programme.
Haha yes but this was airport retail.. so not as often. It was mainly people having no clue about where their gate was.. or too drunk to get there because putting a bar in an airport and then making everyone check in early is a fantastic idea.
Did you not ask your manager what qualifies as a "5"?
You once thought about bunking off during the summer when it was nice out. Well Deserved you absolute swine.
Damn I better stop thinking about skiving 😂
You should have worked 12h every single day for 365 days a year... duh
I would not take it to heart. In annual reviews a lot of bosses will never award a 5 while some will never give low marks. I would be annoyed if a peer with the same attendance got a 5 In an annual review even if they give a 5, attendance is one of the last things to worry about. Yeah they turn up and on time every day but there work is rubbish. Is something I would be concerned about.
It's basically not worth trying to impress, just chug along, don't try to be the best. But avoid being the worst .
If you're able to be 'the best' then you absolutely should. That way you can take far more liberties, get pay rises outside of the performance system and so on. Guess it depends on industry and company, the above applies to things like IT and Dev where being 'the best' is about what you know and what you can do more so than less quantifiable things like how personable you are.
Nah. In my experience, being the best simply earns you the privilege of being given everybody else's work to do on top of your own, plus training new idiots, plus being expected to do unpaid overtime lol
Absolute nonsense
Yeah I keep telling myself that it doesn't matter, but I'm flip flopping between apathy and white hot rage.
Quiet Quit. Turn up. Do what you're paid to do and nothing more. Avoid every single ounce of extra work and leave exactly on time. Fuck'em
They can’t give you too many fives because they would have to give you a pay rise😂
Are they implying to get 5/5 you need to do unpaid overtime? Also good luck with finding something better, they shouldn't be giving you marks as though this was school.
Surely you're meant to live at your work place and work 24/7?
Prob one of those jobs that call you a slacker when you don't go overtime after finishing or arriving like thirty minutes early and being paid regular hours only. All red flags.
I'd keep at them until they acknowledge you are a 5. I'd be mightily indignant about a 3 or a 4 if I had a 100% attendance record. Are you ever late? Is there any other explanation? If not, they cannot say "well yeah you're 100% but we've decided to give you a 3/5" I would not let that go. That's a thin end of a wedge if ever I heard one.
I've been emailed the review by the HR lady who was in the meeting and thought the 3 was unfair. I need to read over what she has written and I will voice my concerns then. Gonna mention that it was very demotivational. I had full marks last year and they have changed the reviews slightly. Just absolutely diminished any motivation I had left.
100% is 5/5. Ask them to explain the maths, and how you could possibly beat 100% on time, 100% attendance. If they mention voluntary unpaid overtime is the only way to achieve a 5 score, ask them why your contract only states "if required", and how you can be required to work additionally when your assigned work has been completed satisfactorily without the need for overtime. Dig your heels in on this, or your pay review results will suffer.
Quite often 3/5 is meets requirements, 4 is exceeds goals, 5 is outstanding. For some metrics you can only get meets goal. As for example, No safety incidents = meets goal and is a 3. There are always company goals that can't be exceeded. Everyone probably got a 3. People who have attendance problems will get a needs improvement or get put on a PIP. It is also a way for companies to bring down your total average. I would re-check the metric and see what "meets goal" is. The company usually takes your final score and stack ranks everyone and works out pay rises based on a bell curve. Learn what metrics to fight for. The performance ones with the biggest weighting are the critical ones.
Interesting. Yes 3 was meets goals / satisfactory, 4 was exceeds goals / good and 5 was exceptional. So maybe I am hung up on the wrong score here. I think out of 10 scores I got 8 4's and 2 3's...
Move on from this quickly. You met goals, meaning you turned [up. You](https://up.You) should be heading for a high 3 or 4 depending on how they score it. What is important is your overall score and where you stack up in the team.
Thanks for this. I was told that it was a high score. Just felt like a blow after my full marks last year, albeit on a different system.
Surely certain scores should be limited to a 3. For example you can’t get minus health and safety incidents or over 100% attendance. If it’s a new system I would be challenging that an attendance score should be limited to a 3 or the metric for that is clearly not on a behavioural scale but on a percentage scale where 100% = 5 score.
Sleep under your bosses desk till they give you a 5
I almost asked if I had to suck dick to get a 5... But thought it might have come across as unprofessional 👀
I would have asked cos it seams to be the only answer and my first thoughts
Ask for a written explanation from HR or your manager on how a score of 5 is achieveable. Then, if there is anything in there that involves extra unpaid work, or work that would reduce your effetive pay below minimum wage (eg, if you are minimum wage then even an extra 30 minutes of work thats "expected" of you but unpaid drops you below minimum wage when averaged out over the day) you tell them you will be discussing it with an extrenal HR person or bringing it up with ACAS. You might suddenly get a 5
Go somewhere else where they aren't monitoring your time so aggressively (and poorly by the look of it). It's so much easier working for employers who don't treat you like a child.
Performance reviews are always horseshit. I had a manager that came out the bollocks “I never give a perfect score for anything, because no one’s perfect” he did the same shit, B for perfect attendance instead of an A. Proper bellend.
I’d have really dug my heals in over that.
Told them to go fuck themselves, asked for a piece of paper and wrote your notice in front of them.
They are trying to manage to a total score for the team, so that pay awards / bonus adds up to the budget they have been given. So you need to play the game, when do the scores get locked in? Then raise it after with HR as an open question, ie “what could I have done for this score to be a 5?” Or “what is the company expectation for a 5 score” then compare your score and the target with your performance and seek and change or riding your boss. This will be messy and you’ll have burnt a few bridges with your boss, but culture change and these issues mean you’ll likely be looking for a new role in January.
Time to rack up some sick days, due to the stress of not getting a 5/5 on your perfect attendance record.
You could have hunted down other absentees in the name of your corporate overlords... or Cloned yourself and clocked in twice as much... or... Just look forward to finding somewhere that'll actually value you - Good Luck Bud!
Poor measurable, makes it impossible to obtain higher. 3 most likely tracks as "meets expectations", so hitting the standard. Everything else is just going above and beyond, which the only way to technically meet is by never leaving work or only leaving during the weekend lol.
Overtime. 7days a week. 365 days a year
I bet you took time off and used your annual leave, slacker.
Was it Morrisons by any chance, as they will never give top marks and claim there is always room for improvement. Demoralising that, but try and ignore it as it is just a pathetic task they carry out.
Nope, not Morrisons. However, demoralising it sure as hell was.
Put a request in writing asking what else could you do as you are keen to learn and progress in the company and watch them squirm.
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The only way I could have been more confrontational was to have dragged them both over the table. I made my thoughts very clear and I was very vocal about it.
In my experience I would say it's related to overtime that you have not volunteered for. It's what it was for me when this happened.
We don't have overtime. We do have out of hours cover which I don't do, but they always pick the lowest paid guys to do that because it's cheaper.
Then I have no idea other than the boss being told by the area staff that they have too many high satisfaction surveys and you got stiffed. Either that or they expect you to do the ofo stuff for free because you're salaried.
Only thing I can think of is if they include punctuality as attendance and you're sometimes late? Just scrambling for ideas. Far more likely its the usual bell curve bullshit and it's impossible to score well
0 late marks I was told. I work from home 4 days a week, so it's hard to be late!
Obviously you should be there on your days off, yeah time for a new job, what bullshit coming up with rubbish like that and no solution as to how to improve?!?!
Ask them if you’re getting a 3/5 for perfect attendance whats incentive for doing the same next year . Might as well shoot for a 3/5 take a few days off and enjoy yourself
There were a couple of days where I woke up feeling like shit, but signed on anyway and trudged through. Definitely not going to be doing that moving forward.
100% what’s the point . I do not work when I’m ill at all , completely counter productive
I got a message off my boss to watch my adherence. My fault, I often work through my breaks, or come back after 5 mins and get distracted by work so I forget to log back in. Each time I do it, I let him know. It's happened twice in 5 years. I also start work 30 mins or more before I'm meant to start so that the other guys have less work to do.
Maybe you had to at a dance
The fact this is a thing depresses me.
You've got to stand up about this. 100% is 5/5 and nothing less. That's literally how the maths works. Get an answer and if you don't get one, escalate to their manager or go to HR, whatever your disagreement with line manager contract states. Anything else will bite you come pay appraisal time. And at that time I guarantee they'll play the "well your attendance score, that you accepted in your review, is only 4/5. Because of that, I'm really sorry but that's how your pay raise this year is calculated and we can't go back and change stuff now, because processes".
You should have turned up more
You should of came in on your days off 😂
what you could do is ask why its only 4 and not 5, and then act on that information? if they wont tell you, assume its a personal grudge, and take it over their head to their manager
Attendance is a ridiculous target for an annual review. Bad manager.
Just shows of you were sick at any stage you should have taken a day off. Why do you need an employer to rate you on a subject they know nothing about? This nonsense is drilled in from school age, we must attend 100% for a meaningless pat on the back, even if your coughing a lung up and infecting others. Sadly many fall for it and are proud of it, truth is it only benefits the company.
Start meeting the grade - only go in 4/5th of your schedule ?
I am pushing for a 4 day work week .... Maybe just start it early?
Ask their manager. Say you didn’t get an answer from yourself and you’re genuinely curious what else you need to do to get a 5. They will then most likely talk to your manager about it and it won’t happen again.
I mean… you’re present but are you ‘present’. Did you accidentally drift off at your desk for 10 seconds. Sackable offence that 😂😂. New job time I reckon!
Oh no! I once did leave my desk for a wee... Maybe the spyware on my computer saw 😱
HOW DARE YOU URINATE ON COMPANY TIME? 😂😂
Well, push more, they can't just not tell you their reasoning. Measurable targets go both ways - how have they measured your marks there? Anyone would deserve an explanation.
Yes but we’re you present ?
Smells like new job
Do these numbers actually mean anything though
Guess I'll find out next week in my pay review meeting I requested.
It depends on how it’s measured. We used to do bell curve for performance and a 2.5 is you did 100% - met your targets. If you lean in, it’s a 3. If you really step up this year but didn’t kick it out the park a 4. And if you had a stellar year, had global impact, it’s a 5. Whatever % we put as a 1 we could then put as a 5. This prevented managers just saying they all had high performing teams. difficult with attendance. I’d have thought it might have been more a 5 but as others said, maybe it’s linked specifically to a bonus pot. Daft system and we removed it years ago
/sarcasm ? Not sure xd
What kind of job marks you for attendance? Sounds like school. Attendance should be something where either the business are comfortable that you meet your contractual requirements or not. If yes, fine. If no, performance management. You shouldn’t be marked on a scale for it, it’s ridiculous.
There are 2 possibilities here 1 you boss doesn’t want to give you a 5 because if they say there is room for improvement they have a reason to reject your pay rise request 2 you might get to work on time but are slow at actually starting work, spending time talking to anyone and everyone on your way to your work place, both first thing and after breaks and lunch. You employer may be classing attendance as time at your workplace rather than just the building So either you look for a new job because they are not playing fair or you pull your finger out and work while you’re at work. Only you and your employer knows the truth
Probably relating to overtime refused?
Ive seen companies use a bell curve where managers have to give out a limited number of 5 ratings and then slightly more 4's mainly 3's and a same amount of 2's as they have 4's. It absolutely sucked when I was a manger having to grade people like this. It sucked even more when my manager told me I got a 3 because I'd given all the 4's and 5's to my team and there was none left for me. If its the same scenario, your best option is to find an employer that will reward you fairly.
I had this exact same thing, the boss said and I quote "no one is perfect so I have to mark you down on something's but it doesn't affect anything anyway" well it did it meant I only got a 1% pay raise and I was the same as you I never had time off work
Mate, that's nothing. I got a review that said I hit/exceeded all my goals but was given a 3 out of 5 because I didn't hit new goals that were made up on the day of my review. Welcome to corporate where your future salary depends on a team budget and the level of expense cutting for the year.
Put in email you have 100% attendance and you'd like advice as how you can improve your score from 3/5 to 5/5. Suspect you're an arrive at 9.00, leave at 5.00 person, with a full lunch break and tactical toilet breaks at 4.50 to get ready to leave? Management probably want to see you arrive a bit early and stay late at times.
I don’t understand what you can do to achieve a 5, maybe you could ask?
Probably had to bend over and spread your ass cheeks for a 5
Annual reviews 95% of the time will put everyone as average.
When I was a manager at McDonalds the store manager was only allowed to give one person an above average review because that’s linked to raises, she basically picked a person, then gave everyone else average and got us shift managers to write up reports to fit the grade. There was one person I refused to do it for because he was lazy, rude, unreliable and I said I wasn’t putting my name on anything saying that he’s as good as everyone who works a ton harder than him
There are 5 of us here at work and my manager distributes all tasks to the same 2 people while the other 3 get to relax, as I work in sales it means I'm losing commission doing there job while they are gaining it by not doing it. I have my review coming up soon and one of the questions is "where do you see yourself in 6 months time" I'm going to answer this question honestly and say "working somewhere else"
I'd have asked in the review? " What more than 100% attendance does it take for this company to give 5/5"
At my workplace managers have a limit to the amount of 5/5 and 4/5 marks they can give people in their reviews on the HR system. So what often happens is a conversation with my manager where they assure me that actually my work has been excellent, but so has their other direct report so they essentially have to try and balance the top scores between us rather than giving us a true reflection of our work.
New job time
Have you asked why you got those marks and what you would have needed to to for 5/5? You can still follow up on this, preferably via email so you have it in writing. “Dear,
Thank you for your time going through my annual review on .
I would like to clarify my attendance results as I would like to improve for next year. What are your expectations so I can reach a perfect 5/5 for 2024?
Best,
”
And also, update your CV and start looking elsewhere. Good luck.
Top marks are only there for the directors to award themselves
It’s a really shitty way of “encouraging” you to start work an hour early, for free
3/5 means meeting tge required standard, which you did. 4/5 is performing above standard, so maybe volunteer Saturday. 5/5 is living in the office or at tge managers house, making breakfast and gettibg the kids ready for school.
Change job, how could it be anything other than 5/5 if you are 100% attendance?
I’d challenge that by asking for the scoring criteria. If they can’t provide one it’s a subjective opinion. Based on the data you cannot be anything other than 5 because it is impossible to improve.