Employer crazy about KPIs & performance evaluations?

My company, being a tech firm (managed by nerdy engineers), is obsessive about Six Sigma (quantifying errors, even human “errors” in mushy, subjective fields such as law, HR, etc and reducing them to an absurdly impossible level of something like .002 errors per million efforts), and KPI (key performance indicators) evaluations and other absurd efforts to quantify everything, including intangible personnel efforts that cannot be rendered into meaningless numbers, into meaningless numbers so they who know nothing about our work can pretend to understand our level of performance and push us to do better. It’s nuts.

One year ago I was required to set my KPI goals for 2006 – how many cases I would solve, how much money I would bring in, how many training sessions I would conduct, etc. Now, the moment of reckoning: I have been told to count 'em up and calculate the % of my performance. Never mind that my boss never gave me the opportunity to perform some of the items. Never mind that meeting ones target exactly = 70%, exceeding it by 50% = 90%, and it’s apparently impossible to achieve 100%. Never mind that I am supposed to give myself a % rating on the following odd items:

  • making the impossible possible
  • strong result-oriented
  • teamworks spirit and leadership
  • prioritize the company interests

Never mind all that nonsense, I am damn sure going to find a way to give myself 100%. I would think exceeding the goals by 100% in various key areas should translate to scores of 150% or 200%, rather than submitting to some petty engineer manager’s thinking that it almost equals 100%.

Besides, I need to hurry up and finish my KPI evaluation so I can get to the other 2006 evaluation and 2007 goal setting that HR requested me to complete last week, so I can then get back to my work. :s

Don’t get me started. TARDS.

[quote=“Mother Theresa”] Never mind that meeting ones target exactly = 70%, exceeding it by 50% = 90%, and it’s apparently impossible to achieve 100%. Never mind that I am supposed to give myself a % rating on the following odd items:

  • making the impossible possible
  • strong result-oriented
  • teamworks spirit and leadership
  • prioritize the company interests

Never mind all that nonsense, I am damn sure going to find a way to give myself 100%. I would think exceeding the goals by 100% in various key areas should translate to scores of 150% or 200%, rather than submitting to some petty engineer manager’s thinking that it almost equals 100%.

Besides, I need to hurry up and finish my KPI evaluation so I can get to the other 2006 evaluation and 2007 goal setting that HR requested me to complete last week, so I can then get back to my work. :s[/quote]

Sounds like youre about to be FIRED. I’d be on the phone for new jobs in about 5 minutes.

+1

Be thankful you are using Six Sigma… at tleast its vaguely new… we use MBO, a 1950s tool… madness

I’d just give myself 100% for everything except the number of training sessions I gave. If they’re making you do nonsense like this, you obviously haven’t trained them enough.

Ha, not a chance. They can’t fire me now. I just gave myself an 837%. :dance:

You cannot judge improvements or such in KPIs without having a frame of reference to begin with. So the theory is you measure something, then use this as a frame of reference or bench mark and then try to continually improve on this

SIX SIGMA, TQM has become a obsession to many companies( the merits of each system are debatable - personally I see SIX SIGMA as some cult, where if you fail to implement it, as according to Mr Motorola, you need to flagilate yourself twenty times), but many companies try to install such a system with little understanding of what it means and how to do it, while they brag about it to their customers.

Reminds me of the paper ISO companies out there. They have all the paperwork in place for the ISO auditor. They have little regard for the theory that you build quality into something, and see it as a necessary thing at the end to emlinate defects from being shipped

I like these KPIs (which are totally intangable) and wrong

[b]- making the impossible possible (like making black white?)

  • strong result-oriented (the results of what? the 3.30 at Newmarket?)
  • teamworks spirit and leadership (??)
  • prioritize the company interests (And what exaclty does the CEO, CFO and COO do while all others in the company need to do this?)[/b]

KPIs usually come from having internal focus groups identifying customer requirements and expectations ( whether the customer realises what these all are). Then you measure the current process and then try and improve on it. You filter down relevant KPIs to departments

when you are first asked to evaluate, give yourself the ability of a six year old kid, and then each time later you have to compare with it, you are always a winner. easy.

or just lie. it makes as much sense as all that management-invented-for-the-purpose-of-making-myself-look-busy-and-keep-myself-employed crap. unfortunately it is the poison of the western world, the sand in our gearbox, the spanner in our works. what a wank.

piss on 'em. these are the same bastards who claim that sociology is a science. qualitative is not quantitative.

taiwan senior management are reading their little “mbas and business for dummies” books and implemeting these things without thought… yet thinking that by simply implementing them they will turn their business around.

[quote=“TNT”]I like these KPIs (which are totally intangable) and wrong

[b]- making the impossible possible (like making black white?)

  • strong result-oriented (the results of what? the 3.30 at Newmarket?)
  • teamworks spirit and leadership (??)
  • prioritize the company interests (And what exaclty does the CEO, CFO and COO do while all others in the company need to do this?)[/b][/quote]

Not only that, but we are supposed to state what percent of the goal we accomplished per quarter, as well as for hte entire year. Therefore, I have to show what % I did in making the impossible possible in Q3 and what % I did in teamworks spirit and leadership in Q2, and what % I did in prioritizing company interests in Q4, etc.

Crazier still, I know one of our very top level managers WILL read the results and analyze them and possibly wish to discuss them. After all, he spent 2 months working with us on our Annual Plan for hte department, making us revise it time and again to move this comma there, that semicolon here, and the like. So, here we go again.

(Actually, I must confess, part of the problem with him is that he’s very very near the top of the company, but it’s clear he’s being squeezed out and a more competent guy is moving up instead of him, so he seems to have not much to do but work on such BS. He was also a line manager earlier in his career, so I guess that’s his mentality.)

whatever happened to the manager actually knowing what their staff were doing, and being responsible for their own section instead of all this “back-to-Head-Office-reporting” bullshit?

modern management has gone the way of modern art: head stuck so firmly up its own arse it doesn’t realise that the whole world is laughing at it.

the process has become more important than the result.

MBA seems to be a new word for toilet paper.

[quote=“Mother Theresa”][quote=“TNT”]I like these KPIs (which are totally intangable) and wrong

[b]- making the impossible possible (like making black white?)

  • strong result-oriented (the results of what? the 3.30 at Newmarket?)
  • teamworks spirit and leadership (??)
  • prioritize the company interests (And what exaclty does the CEO, CFO and COO do while all others in the company need to do this?)[/b][/quote]

Not only that, but we are supposed to state what percent of the goal we accomplished per quarter, as well as for hte entire year. Therefore, I have to show what % I did in making the impossible possible in Q3 and what % I did in teamworks spirit and leadership in Q2, and what % I did in prioritizing company interests in Q4, etc.

Crazier still, I know one of our very top level managers WILL read the results and analyze them and possibly wish to discuss them. After all, he spent 2 months working with us on our Annual Plan for hte department, making us revise it time and again to move this comma there, that semicolon here, and the like. So, here we go again.

(Actually, I must confess, part of the problem with him is that he’s very very near the top of the company, but it’s clear he’s being squeezed out and a more competent guy is moving up instead of him, so he seems to have not much to do but work on such BS. He was also a line manager earlier in his career, so I guess that’s his mentality.)[/quote]
This is a lot clearer now. I was wondering how you could be asked to select KPIs and track performance if you weren’t revisiting them throughout the course of the year.

In our firm - far from being any kind of ideal - many of us recognize the folly of the process, but sincerely try to make the most of the tools we are given. Sure, this stuff is mostly evidence gathering for HR so that when you upset the wrong person, there are grounds to can you, move you, or kill your projects. But some of us try to turn the tables and work the system too.

Last year, whenever my boss asked me for my goal settings and performance reviews, I asked him about his. It makes sense - what good is my performance if it isn’t “aligned” with my boss or the team’s at large? He would then use the same tactic and complain that he hasn’t had his talk with his boss, and all up the chain. :laughing: Unlike back at Corporate, where my friends there stress out about this stuff, we are much more easy going over here. To HR’s chagrin (I’d bet) we tend to push the reports to the last moment, when we wind up having to back into the results.

It seems our process is similar to yours in at least one respect, we are supposed to log our progress over the course of the year. Not quarterly, ours is 3 times. (It isn’t strange to hear a senior manager remark at the bizarre company book club project they dreamed up, “I need to do this to fulfil my appraisal objective!”) At these times, we are supposed to make adjustments in agreement with our supervisor. OK, we can’t touch the objectives we set, but we can add to the KPIs and accomplishments. And of course, if some goals completely fall off track, which they invariably do, key people are informed and are thus more forgivable or, at least, complicit

Since we (my boss, his boss, etc) are all guilty of this to some degree, we don’t and can’t get on each other’s case so much. But having the chance to talk about what we are doing in a quasi-quantifiable way can be in our interest. We can avoid pet projects from out-of-touch boss at the top of the pyramid (“Sorry boss, if I take on your boss’s training idea because then I can’t work on this thing that you and already agreed was ‘essential’” …)

Also, don’t forget that this helps us keep somewhat focused on our salary raises, bonuses and promotions. If all you can expect after all this talk is the customary 3% inflation boost, start looking for a job (don’t hit the road yet, just start looking) and rush through writing your appraisal document. If you want to transfer to another team, office or project, at least you have this appraisal to quantify (or enchance/counter) whatever your boss is going to say. And if you are expecting an organization bonus, you can use the document as justification for protecting your slice or, after you have moved on, remembering talking points for your next interview.

In short, I feel for you, compadre. And trust that you are not alone.

I just completed my self-performance evaluations for 2007 Q1, Q2 and Q4. :slight_smile:

We do them by filling in and clicking boxes online and it’s mostly in Chinese, so I really don’t know what it says or what claims I’m making about myself, but I’ve been receiving emails for the past couple of months telling me to complete this and recently our head administrative assistant has been pushing me, so I finally asked her to instruct me what to fill in, where, and what buttons to push.

She told me I didn’t need to do Q3, I have no idea why, but who am I to question someone who can read the form?

Anyway, as I said, I really don’t know what it says, but of course I gave myself a perfect score on everything, or attempted to (the system is set up so a perfect score on each item is actually a 98%, rather than 100%, so one loses 2% per item and the best one can get overall appears to be a 92%). I regret a little that I have no idea what I’m checking, but c’est la vie. At least it’s not like I’m signing my bank account over to them. Or at least I think I didn’t.

Now I guess I’m all squared away for the next year.

:dance:

Way to go! That’s how you handle those silly passing management crazes.

Soon another management guru is going to laugh his way to the bank by publishing a new book, and the executives will be parroting the latest meaningless buzzwords from it. Meanwhile, keep giving yourself 100%…that’ll shut 'em up!

I heard you were having problems with your TPS reports.

Oh man, I love that movie.

I’m going out tomorrow to buy me a big red stapler.

Meeting with the CEO in 20 minutes for Annual Plan review. Wish me luck.

I’ll be glad when this endless process is over.