Performance reviews aren't always based on "objective goals" and it'd be bad if they were, because almost anyone outside of sales could game them.
Typically it's a kind of stack ranking based on how you performed relative to peers, where relative means in the vague opinion of your management tree.
Public teacher unions are adamantly against subjective reviews, which is why I suggested an objective mechanism.
> in the vague opinion of your management tree
I know it's popular to believe that management has no idea who the real performers are. But every office I've worked in, everyone knew who the good performers were and who the deadwood was. Including the managers.
It's also true that every person I've talked to who had been laid off was sure he was unfairly targeted. Even the ones who'd come to work strung out on coke.
Let's apply this to bankers, too. They must give a checking account to anybody who shows up, and their pay can be based on how much money is in those checking accounts at the end of the fiscal year.
a teacher's job is to teach their students. a "banker" (at the sort of bank where you might open a checking account) isn't expected to grow your checking account for you. you're supposed to do that, and the bank is supposed to hold it safely. I don't understand the comparison you are trying to make.
> because almost anyone outside of sales could game them
Perhaps you haven't worked in sales? My experience of sales meetings was that most of the meeting was taken up with discussions of how to optimise commission. The sales manager was totally in on the game; after all, he got a skim of his salesmen's commissions.
In no other environment have I seen people so obsessed with juking the stats.
Even sales manipulates them -- giving away way too much to lock in a longer deal this quarter because it makes this quarter's numbers look better had been a problem at places I've worked.
