At one company, there was so much churn that annual objectives were completely meaningless. It was perfectly normal for an engineer to have an objective of improving a particular project, only to be taken off of it after a week and then be put on other projects. At review time, management tried to retroactively change the objectives to match what the engineer had actually done that year, but HR refused to allow it. HR said they were responsible to come up with measurable employee objectives for the year that wouldn't change.
Management responded with giving employees goals such as "submit timesheet by Friday", "use the correct forms in code reviews", and, my favourite, "respect the development process".
One year, the company added a self-evaluation option, which allowed you to rate your success at achieving the previous year's goal. I rated myself at 150% for everything. All of the goals were silly paperwork, which I automated and submitted early, so I had, by definition, exceeded expectations.
My manager objected, because that would mean I'd earned a bonus and a raise, and "we're not going to give you a bonus because you submitted your timesheets and your weekly status reports a day early".
Hey, you're the one who set those as metrics, dude.
Unsurprisingly, the self-evaluation option was removed the next year.
Even less surprising was during a merger, the new management reviewed engineers' objectives, and discovered the many engineers were quoting objectives for projects that had ended years earlier, that their managers hadn't noticed, and had approved, and graded them on them.
At one company, there was so much churn that annual objectives were completely meaningless. It was perfectly normal for an engineer to have an objective of improving a particular project, only to be taken off of it after a week and then be put on other projects. At review time, management tried to retroactively change the objectives to match what the engineer had actually done that year, but HR refused to allow it. HR said they were responsible to come up with measurable employee objectives for the year that wouldn't change.
Management responded with giving employees goals such as "submit timesheet by Friday", "use the correct forms in code reviews", and, my favourite, "respect the development process".
One year, the company added a self-evaluation option, which allowed you to rate your success at achieving the previous year's goal. I rated myself at 150% for everything. All of the goals were silly paperwork, which I automated and submitted early, so I had, by definition, exceeded expectations.
My manager objected, because that would mean I'd earned a bonus and a raise, and "we're not going to give you a bonus because you submitted your timesheets and your weekly status reports a day early".
Hey, you're the one who set those as metrics, dude.
Unsurprisingly, the self-evaluation option was removed the next year.
Even less surprising was during a merger, the new management reviewed engineers' objectives, and discovered the many engineers were quoting objectives for projects that had ended years earlier, that their managers hadn't noticed, and had approved, and graded them on them.
I no longer take goals. I only accept quests. For money. 💰