Is this ok? Boss asked me complete a performance evaluation of her

[dallas27]

I don't think this is good advice. Remember that HR is there to represent the company, not you. The manager is part of the company. You are only an employee. Even when you, the employee, are right and the manager is wrong, HR will protect the manager. They might deal with the manager at a later date, but that is no help to the employee.

Thats correct, and they will want to prevent an unlawful termination situation that is easily avoided. However, it's just as likely HR is staffed by morons, so you take you chances when you leave the house each morning.


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[haha]

+1 Heavy on the *VERY*

I suggest that you lie through your teeth. You never lose from giving false praise to a boss, a spouse, or an SO.

Ha

 

[eta2020]

This kind of S**t is why we FIRE.

 

[candrew]

What appears on its surface to be a potentially useful tool for performance improvement (360 degree feedback) quite often ends up becoming a circular firing squad.

Personally, I hate this sort of crap where at the mega-corp where I w*rk. Quite often, those who inhabit the ivory towers are self-congratulatory, tone deaf and have created an echo chamber for their mutual admiration society.

Oh, they (ostensibly) want honest feedback. Just make sure it isn't *too* honest.

In other words - seldom is heard a discouraging word.

 

[harley]

 

[racy]

Not anonymous? You are the only one? NO WAY, or sugar coat it up to make her the "world's best boss".
I worked in mega corp. We had 360 Reviews, but they were anonymous and there were many inputting. (However, I always sugar coated, in the belief the boss would/could figure out who said negative stuff).

 

[growing_older]

This so-called 360 process is supposed to be anonymous, but I can conform from being involved in several of them, they never are. Even with good process design (which most do not have) it's still likely that managers will know who gave what feedback. In cases where there was critical feedback it was always policy (secret) for upper level managers to share with lower level managers who was making critical comments as part of their validation process.

The anonymous ones are almost NEVER anonymous.

I've never seen a truly anonymous one.

I think the best option is to be mildly optimistic and claim ignorance for most hard evaluation questions. "She does a fine job managing our group. I'm not aware of what other expectations go with her job."

 

[Aerides]

Even when we did broad anonymous surveys, which were hosted and sent to a 3rd party who only produced consolidated results, they provided the comments back verbatim. I remember reading a presentation summary with my boss and several colleagues in the room. I could recognize one of my comments (written months before) just by the style, the syntax, the words used, etc.

Everyone would read the comments and try to dissect them: "who would have said THAT?" or "oh you know who that must have been"...

I figure anyone who had read enough of my work emails and presentations could see "me" in those words as well. Every year after, I made sure to dumb it down, include a bit of grammatical error, forgo punctuation and anything that remotely sounded like it came out of my mouth.

Last year, I also found out that our MC leaders were given reports on who had contributed to the company charity drive - a few days before the campaign ended, Boss's Boss sent out terse emails to the few that had not yet submitted, (who told the rest of us of course).

Nothing you do at your MC is ever anonymous. Ever.

 

[CRLLS]

I was asked to perform one on my boss back in the 90's. Actually, I wasn't asked, I was told. Since my annual review was already late. I figured I would wait for my review before I did his. A month or so later, he came to me and said they needed my evaluation of him. I told him I would do his when he did mine.

I didn't want to give him a ding for being a bad manager. But wasn't going to lie about him being the best manager ever. A sort of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours". I don't recall ever doing his evaluation. We were both deemed surplus in the merger that year. I ended up being extended before my time was up. But that is another story.

Anonymous or not. I never believe anonymous is really Anonymous, if you know what I mean.

 

[KM]

This isn't a 360 or a peer review (which we did lots of where I worked and yes, they are "suppose to be" anonymous). This is a manger looking for someone to sing THEIR praises to THEIR boss for THEIR review. For whatever reason, they've decided you're the guy to do that. It's grossly inappropriate for them to have you send them the review first.

Assuming your manager requested you to do this verbally, next time they remind you, ask them to send you an email on it. Tell them it's a reminder for you. My guess is you won't get that email, but if you do, wait a few days, then politely reply and say you've thought about it more and would prefer not to. Tell them you're not trained, experienced, or comfortable doing reviews. This way you have a written trail of what happened to take to HR later (if there is fallout of any kind).





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[HFWR]

...stupid phony review baloney.

That...

 

[pb4uski]

Just decline to participate. If they ask why, then just say because it was not anonymous.

 

[cooch96]

Just a note...

The anonymous ones are almost NEVER anonymous.
I had thought one was, and then I was informed that the manager only sees the results if "more than 5" people in their group respond.

Well, one out of five is not anonymous. My thought was that it being anonymous meant the results would be viewed at the high level of the company, not at each manager's level.

With one out of five, my manager easily could have figured out who was who by how things were typed.

Never assume they are anonymous, and only respond honestly if you want to lose your job.

+1. Only strictly multiple choice, electronic, questionnaires could possibly be considered anonymous. Everyone know who peppers his speech with Spanish and who likes to use big words they don't understand and who will make a big check mark even though the instructions were explicit about circling.

To the OP, you have no great options. Personally, I'd avoid the issue: be busy with other stuff, take a few days off sick, even go to the doctor and complain about my lumbago. I've seen some wiser advice from other posters and I'm confident you'll do the right thing for your situation. Good luck!

 

[tmm99]

This kind of S**t is why we FIRE.

I hear you. I used to hate dealing with this kind of cr*p at wo*k.

I am very upset for the OP, for having to experience the kind of stuff that used to drive me up the wall - being put in a no-win situation by whoever we are reporting to.

OP, I think others have given some good advice, although I have a feeling you may have to take some heat whatever you choose to do.

Good luck to you... I sincerely hope this blows away, with you unscathed.

 

[FireBug]

It is simply a way for managers to get out of doing things that they consider 'a pain in the behind'. It first started about 15 years ago when management said, "write your own performance report". It has now evolved into a 360 thing.

It's one reason we retire.

 

[Al in Ohio]

Fill it out, tell the truth, and hand it personally to her boss......then be prepared to duck.

+1. Be brutally honest and return it to her supervisor directly.


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[akck]

+1. Be brutally honest and return it to her supervisor directly.


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And update your resume.

 

[DrRoy]

Fill it out, tell the truth, and hand it personally to her boss......then be prepared to duck.

+1


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[ponyboy]

Our company does these 360 peer reviews. Everyone dreads it. I understand why they do it...they're just looking to nit pick and throw up red flags for each employee in case they need to ever get rid of them or not give them higher pay. Just another way for a company to protect itself from future lawsuits.

OP...decline it. Doing this in no way can help you. For our company employees are allowed to decline.

 

[Texas Proud]

Just decline to participate. If they ask why, then just say because it was not anonymous.

That really does not matter... when we did the 360s back in 2000 my boss called me to complain about one of the reviews... it was not that good... and I do think some of it missed the mark pretty far... but, she knew who wrote the bad review... there are not enough employees to not know... even if you have 10 employees you can be pretty sure who wrote what...

 

[Totoro]

This calls for some olympic Weasel skills.

The objective is that you can keep your ethical sense of being intact and don't burn any bridges with boss, bosses boss and anyone else.

Situation as described doesn't allow that, so you need to develop different options. I would strongly advise against complying or denying the request directly.

Note that your boss is displaying nervous control behavior by wanting to take the letter personally to her chief. Danger sign.

Two options come to mind right now, there may be others to ponder: 1) Have a meeting with HR explaining the situation - or if there is an ombudsperson or similar, with them. 2) Have a meeting with bosses boss, with a plausible deniable different agenda.

Another weasel option might be to state: "You get frequent requests for referrals and written reviews, and deny all of them, because if you did deny one that would mean it was going to be negative. And you don't want to cause harm. So you deny all of them, including her request". Incidentally that's the same reason why companies have a no-referral policy. Come to think of it: this might be a legal way out for you if such policy exists. A written named form can function as a referral, and might be illegal per company policy.

You can still state though that you are happy to share your open feedback with her boss in a personal meeting with said boss. Highly doubt she'd go for that. Can be a risky bet though if she counters with a boss meeting where she is present.

I once converted a named review to an anonymous review by stating that I wanted to give others the option to remain anonymous. By disclosing my name I shrank the pool of "plausible reviewers", and didn't feel comfortable stripping someone else of the anonymity option. Sounds contrived, right? It worked anyway.

 

[Totoro]

That really does not matter... when we did the 360s back in 2000 my boss called me to complain about one of the reviews... it was not that good... and I do think some of it missed the mark pretty far... but, she knew who wrote the bad review... there are not enough employees to not know... even if you have 10 employees you can be pretty sure who wrote what...

It depends on how the upward feedback is passed on. HR at my last company combined scores (just averaged numbers) with a compilation of selected quotes, sometimes edited for style or revealing content. It worked really well. Revealing names by HR was a fireable offense.

Feedback is hard to get right, especially upward feedback.

 

[ugeauxgirl]

I'd avoid at all costs- call in sick the day she needs it if you have to. If you absolutely cannot avoid it, and you want to keep your job, I would lie. Self preservation. No woman expects you to tell the truth when she asks you if this outfit makes her look fat, right? If I want the truth from my husband I will say- "Do you think I should wear this?"

 

[Texas Proud]

It depends on how the upward feedback is passed on. HR at my last company combined scores (just averaged numbers) with a compilation of selected quotes, sometimes edited for style or revealing content. It worked really well. Revealing names by HR was a fireable offense.

Feedback is hard to get right, especially upward feedback.

Oh yea, it was combined with others, but they also passed on the comments... again, combined.... but I do not think comments were edited...

Even then, it was not that hard to figure out who wrote the best and the worst comments... the stuff in the middle was hard, but nobody cared about that...

 

[braumeister]

Since the OP was the only one asked, I think I would stall as long as I could, then when she asked for it I would say "Why me? I could possibly understand if you asked all your reports for an evaluation, but I feel singled out and it makes me nervous. Couldn't you make it anonymous and have everyone do it? Are other departments doing the same?"