This podcast provides guidance and strategies for navigating annual reviews with your manager. Topics covered include managing the review process throughout the year, the good and bad of annual reviews, pay transparency, making yourself visible, and navigating senior feedback and mentorship.
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insights INSIGHT
Annual Reviews Serve Organizational Fit
Annual reviews are a company-level check to ensure people are in the right roles and improving organizational fit.
They are invasive and typically happen once a year because the work to run them is large.
insights INSIGHT
HR Represents The Company
HR runs the review process but represents the company's interests, not individual employees.
Remember HR's role is to steward the company's position during compensation and performance negotiations.
insights INSIGHT
Raises Follow A Budgeted Bell Curve
Companies allocate a fixed pool for increases, typically a percent of payroll, and expect managers to distribute it.
That distribution often creates a bell curve: bigger raises for top performers, status quo for most, reductions or actions for low performers.
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With many companies doing annual reviews this time of year, we go through some guidance, tips and tricks and strategies for navigating reviews with your manager, and reviews with your teams.
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SHOW NOTES:
HOW TO MANAGE THE PROCESS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR
The annual review is a year-long project, but most people only focus on the 3-4 weeks around it.
It’s about what you do, but it’s also about what you do that’s visible beyond your team.
Know how your company measures success and structures rewards/promotions/recognition.
THE GOOD, BAD AND THE UGLY OF THE ANNUAL REVIEW
HR controls the process, and your manager generally doesn’t want to deal with it.
Most companies allocate a strict budget, which is top-down.
Most companies grade on a broad bell curve; most people end up in the middle.
It’s good to understand concepts like grade levels and mid-points of compensation.
“Pay transparency” is probably not what you think.
Some (not all) bosses aren’t thinking about your career, so you need to own it
Promotions usually take a few cycles to happen. Ask around to understand that process.
For example, don’t expect the startup CEO to give you the best advice for your career, their interests may diverge from yours, asking more experience people how they do X may result in outdated advice.
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