X-Message-Number: 30552
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:51:58 -0700
Subject: Why performance reviews are not public (was Re: Annual Perfor...
References:  <>
From:  (Tim Freeman)

"Finance Department" <> in cryomsg 35047 says:
>I think [annual performance reviews are] an excellent idea.
>Strangely enough, insiders close to Alcor's board have mentioned to
>me that annual performance reviews have already been done by Alcor
>employees and management, and the same have been done on them.  Why
>have we not heard the results of these reviews?    

All employers I've ever been involved with have kept their performance
reviews very private.

The incentives are obvious.  If legal entity A makes a public negative
statement about legal entity B in the US, B can sue A for libel.  B
may not win if A's statement is true, but it can be expensive for A to
defend the lawsuit anyway.  If the purpose of the documents is to make
internal decisions about salaries and promotions and demotions, there
is no value gained by making them public.  If people expect the
documents to be public, they'll game out the libel lawsuits (and other
social consequences) and censor themselves, and the documents will not
say anything useful.

They can't just release the positive reviews, because then the lack of
a released statement is in itself a negative statement.

Everyone who has had a full-time job for long enough to have a
performance review has experienced this dynamic in person.  I suppose
you're asking this question because you haven't done that yet.

-- 
Tim Freeman               http://www.fungible.com           

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=30552