How am I doing?

In my experience it’s an effective measure so long as there is no/little ambuguity to the language. I’ve been trying to strike the term “other duties as assigned” from my teaching contract since I began full-time employment…union issues!

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it, so that would be a Yes on using descriptions and set goals. Personally, I can’t imagine staying in a job where you don’t occasionally stop to discuss how you’re performing, progressing and developing.
CIPD has a good fact sheet on performance appraisals.

“other duties as assigned” is a HORRIBLE catch all, huh? You sign that, and you better get ready to grab your ankles!

I don’t know. I’ve only been at this job for 3 months now, so I haven’t had a review yet. but I asked my boss how I was doing, and he said I am a “model employee.” I hope he says something as good when it comes time to put it in writing for my permanent record!!

Written performance evaluations are a positive. You do not have to guess whaqt your employer thinks. You have written information (in the form of areas needing improvement) to work toward for the next review.

When I first started in the office of a high school, there was no job descriptions. We had three secretaries, and each had their “thing” to do. I am really quick, organized, and do ten times the work in half the time as the others. Being the one with the least seniority, the other girls dumped all of the duties that they didn’t want to do onto me. Soon I was doing all the work, and all they were doing was the fun parts of their jobs, and socializing a lot during the rest of the day. Then our distric did a job study and determined what each position would do. I can’t tell you how happy it made me to see the principal give them back all their duties. Ha-ha. They haven’t stopped complaining about the job study ever since, saying it was a waste of taxpayers money, and that it was unnecessary. Guess it depends on what side of the fence you’re on.

Yes, we use formal job descriptions as part of employees’ performance evaluation but it is not the largest factor in determining whether someone receives a pay rise.

We use formal job descriptions (the baseline) more as a tool for firing employees who fail to meet the basic demands of the job. When we are looking to promote someone, this person MUST have proven their will and ability to rise above the basic requirements and do anything or everything in his power to do what is best for a task.

Someone who leaves at a fixed time everyday and does just what he needs to do will likely retain his job, but is highly unlikely to be considered for promotion.

the most recent example was amongst our 3 new interns; all of them were proficient in design which is why they were given places, but only 1 would constantly stay late producing more drafts than asked, and he would follow the entire project through to print and client delivery (he asked to be allowed to attend client meetings). the other 2 would just pack up and leave at 5.

it’s immediately clear who got promoted and who we will likely let go in the future.

* to be fair, we do tell all new employees that we pay attention to those who wish to excel and those who just want to make ends meet.