A question about evaluations

[David Loveless]

I've seen evals done every 6 months and every year. Most of the time,
evals have been tied to pay increase opportunities.

I generally enjoy evaluations, but I once worked at a place that used
evals as punishment. They would broadcast that raises were given only
to the best employees. If you didn't get a raise, you suddenly felt a
strong desire to watch your back, look for another job, or call in
sick for the next week.

They also kept evaluations strictly confidential. In fact, they were
so confidential that the employee never saw the evaluation. You would
go in and basically do an interview while they would scribble notes on
checklists. The only way you knew anything was whether you got a raise
or not. If you didn't get a raise, you didn't know if you were
horrible or just not good enough for a raise.

The worst part, though, was that the checklists were generic for the
entire company. So my role, though completely unrelated to another
position in the company, was judged the same. If I didn't have a skill
set specifically associated to another position, I was given a
negative review on that section. Same for position that had nothing to
do with my skill set.

I sometimes wonder how they survived as a company and if they ever
figured out why they had an annual turn over rate of almost 50%. Makes
you wonder.