No, not soccer goals. Goals, where I work, are those things that “employees work on as part of their performance review.” (See my other entry about Performance Reviews) Well, at least that is what we were supposed to be doing.

I remember in an older job – think 90’s – wherein I specifically achieved all my goals and even surpassed most of them. My manager recommended me for a promotion (I met the other criteria as well) but his manager squashed it. This still confounds me.

We get some, if not most, of our goals passed down from higher management. We’re welcome to add more if we want.

It was once explained to me by a manager’s manager that compensation decisions aren’t based on the year-end Performance Review, but actually based on what is called an inter-ranking: all employees are put in a list and the top 20% were the “Exceeds”, the middle 70% were the “Meets”, and the bottom 10% were the “Needs improvement”. So the performance review, and the goals being met or not, wasn’t even relevant.

As a sad aside, the bottom 10% were the victims in the instances of staff reduction. And what happens after a couple cycles of this, and there are no longer “Needs Improvement” people left? If they are interranked, eventually better personnel are going to be put into the bottom 10%.

But if we aren’t truly rated during performance reviews on our ability to meet our goals, why have them? It is almost like [upper] management is just looking for something to do. Or do they just want to sound important?

Like the Performance Reviews, Goals are another thing I will not miss. Retirement goes will be “don’t be bored everyday” and “don’t spend more than your income.” Those sound like goals I can get behind.