Everyone Is Part of Your Performance Evaluation

When it's annual performance review time, many organizations go through "calibration sessions." The goal of these sessions is to make sure the organization is consistently evaluating performance. In these sessions, your manager makes a case for your annual performance rating to their peer managers and their boss. The peer managers and boss give their perspective on you based on what they have seen, and often, what they have heard.

If your manager is not a strong advocate for you, well, better luck next boss.

If your manager's boss is not a fan of you, well, better luck next company.

These sessions are serious and impactful. The overall evaluation of your year (and the size of your merit increase and bonus) is based on the outcome of these sessions. Given that, you need to stack the deck in your favor. Following is my advice on how do so.

Do your job. This may look like an obvious starting point, but I promise you this point is lost on many people. You shouldn't be doing the "extra credit" in the following points if you're not doing your essential job functions well.

Be responsive. When someone says "I reached out to X, they didn't respond," the message received in my brain is "X is a lazy, unproductive moron that should be fired this afternoon." That is obviously an unfair assessment. But I'm going to guess a similar thought runs through your mind when a co-worker runs afoul of unannounced time limit you gave them to respond to your query.

Work on projects that give you visibility to other managers in your division. People beyond your manager need direct exposure to your awesomeness. Divisions are always looking for volunteers to help internal projects, hop in there and let some different folks see you in action! That way, when calibration time comes, managers beyond your manager can advocate for you because they've seen your work product for themselves. If you do volunteer for a project in your division, treat it with the same professionalism that you treat your core work. Crappy volunteer work will have a negative impact on your reputation.

Figure out additional ways to demonstrate your value to your manager's peers. Contribute to the meetings you attend (if you were invited to the meeting, someone thought you would add your perspective, don't disappoint). Create ways for your part of the division to work more efficiently with other parts of the division.The way you talk to your peers is the same way your manager talks to their peers. Put in the work so that when your name comes up in conversation, people put some respect on it.

If you have done a good job demonstrating value to your manager and your manager's peers, they will be strong advocates for you during the calibration session. And although the official calibration session happens once a year, the calibration process is happening all year long. Follow the guidance above to enlist the masses to be advocates of you.