TLDR: plant manager tried to redo my evaluation my supervisor did for me and proceeded to try and dock me for things out of my control and not in my job description. All of corporate America needs to hear this…evaluations are for evaluating employees at their respective positions not making up some bullshit to not pay them well.
I’ve worked for a company for just shy of two years. Yesterday I received my first evaluation. I currently am in what many would call a middle management position. Yes my position is not necessarily needed. When I started this job, I started at the bottom and have quickly worked my way up. In less than a year I built a night shift team that outran day shift by over 100% production and quality wise. I was then moved to weekends to cover for someone on maternity leave and their performance increased over 400% in TWO DAYS!!!!! I was then moved to day shift where I haven’t been able to do much of anything because upper management ties my hands every chance they get or fights ideas and help I try to offer because it wasn’t theirs or it doesn’t make them look good.
Yesterday my direct supervisor asks me to help him with everyone’s evaluations. I hesitantly agree, as I work more directly with these people and I knew that one of our plant managers had given him this task by himself (corporate America is getting good with passing off job responsibilities the higher up you go).
We go through the list of employees which is about 15-20 in roughly 30 minutes. And by we I mean he tells me what number to score them and asks if I agree and then I enter it into the excel sheet. I also had to figure out a new weighting system we are using, as he could not, and come up with realistic goals which was the R part of a S.M.A.R.T. System. The supervisor was lost with the evaluations and without me they would not have been completed by HR’s deadline. We rated them on goals and areas of Safety, Quality, Production, Teamwork, and Professional Development.
He then proceeds to rate me on the same system and has me fill out my own evaluation based upon scores he gives me. To my shock he gives me the highest evaluation score. The reason for the shock is because we have had our times before yet I think he realizes and sees how much effort I have put forth and continue to put forth even when we disagree.
Three hours later our plant manager emails and sets up a Teams meeting with my direct supervisor and myself. He then gets on the meeting and claims we did the evaluations completely wrong and that he is going to redo mine to show us how to do everyone else’s. Now it should be stated here that he and I have also had times where we went toe to toe on issues as I am not afraid to speak the truth no matter how hard it is to hear and with the fact I am the barrier between the employees and him and I will never tolerate him subjecting them to bullshit or inequality which use to happen frequently.
He immediately starts off with resetting my goals different from the “teams” goals while preaching the top part should be the same for everyone to create a “team”. Notice the bullshit already? And what does he set my first goal to? EMPLOYEE RETENTION.
Now to be specific I do not do ANY hiring, firing, nor do I even have the opportunity to sit in on any interviews at all for new hires. Add to that that in the past week this place has fired 3 people and had 3 others quit.
Of course this led to a confrontational disagreement because he is “always right” and I will not allow myself to be “always wrong”. I explain that this goal is unfair due to the fact someone quitting or being fired, while not completely out of my control, is something I have very little control over and is more often than not an individuals own doing. This plant manager has often said he believe people fire themselves which is true to an extent so therefor how can I be held accountable for others actions? I also explain that as being in a leadership role I must make decisions not only individually but on a team based level and that this goal could alter that. When he asked how I told him that if an employee were to constantly break safety rules and I reported it and that employee were fired then it hurts me based upon their choices. Alternatively if I chose not to report this, that it could lead to others not caring about safety or feeling they were held to different standards and leaving as well. And let’s face it, those that tend not to care tend to not stay anyways so I would be docked twice.
He finally caved and claimed he would allow my evaluation my direct supervisor put in to be used, but I am going to be damn sure I get a copy when raises are discussed. He did further say that in the future to expect goals to be set like what he had discussed.
What he doesn’t yet realize is that he may do that just as soon as he adds it to my job description and changes my job title to Day Shift Lead AND Talent Acquisition & Retention Manager and pays me accordingly to my new job title. Until then he, as well as Corporate America, can screw right off with trying to give evaluations based upon goals not controlled by said employees because they want ways to cheat people out of money. And if not I will tell them “ I would tell you go fuck yourselves….spins in a slow circle glancing around the plant but it would appear you are doing a good enough job of that already.”