To ask for help in handling ultra negative appraisal?

[Anon5623]

So I've been in my job for 3 years as a manager in public sector and had my annual review today. My boss started by asking me to recap my year which I did and then they started their feedback. My boss totally ignored everything I'd said, every piece of work I'd mentioned, and focused purely on me not being "visible enough" to staff.

I came out of it feeling utterly deflated and shit about myself. There wasn't a single thanks, feedback on my work, praise, suggestions for improvement - it was just slating my visibility.

I don't think they're going to mark me as a low performer but I just think fuck it, I won't do anything but the bare minimum moving forwards then as I've worked really bloody hard this year.

I know the boss was in a bad mood today as their assistant warned us in the morning but that's no excuse.

How would you handle this? My boss is ultra defensive by the way and can't bear criticism or being challenged.

Are you working on an office it at home ? Just not sure what viable means if you're at home. We'll you can take your option but you'll just confirm his feelings.

I've always gone by the rule the content appraisal should never be a surprise. I was thought this in a management course. So I'd request a meeting when you're more calm. Say you were surprised by the thi gs taht were said and yuud like more details. Have the pints about your good work written down. Ask for concrete actions about fixing what he sees as the problems.

It's so hard to know if he's a dick or you could do better. But one thing I would say I think unless you're massively under performing it's harsh to lay into someone after the year we've all had. It's not like many of us are in a position to excel right now.

Have you made sure your teams green light is on if available? MIne sometimes seems to change so i dont look available when I am so I have to keep an eye on it.

It doesn’t sound like it was handled well - If you give someone negative feedback it’s meant to be constructive with suggestions on how to improve and detail of what you should have done instead. Is this his normal style?

I think I would approach him a few days later (maybe after the soreness wears off) and say something like ‘I know in my review you said my visibility was an issue, could we talk about ways you think I could improve, and what the expectations are? I hadn’t realise it was an issue before our conversation so it would be helpful to talk through to help me understand’. Then once you have that conversation maybe you could explain that you felt quite deflated and it seemed to overshadow the rest of the good work you’d done.

Sounds like extremely poor management if this is only raised in an annual review.

If you enjoy the role, continue as normal and ask for advice on what you can do to improve on the points they raised, with measurable and timely feedback whenever they feel you aren’t meeting whatever their up to know hidden requirements are.

If you don’t enjoy the role, then yeah, I’d ease off, do the minimum and look to find a better role under better management as soon as possible. Best of luck - a shit manager is a pain and it’s much better to jump fast. I didn’t have bad reviews - on the contrary they were excellent but my manager, who was great otherwise, wouldn’t fight for getting me what I was worth until it was way too late. I wasted five years, never again.

This is so poor. Goes against all the appraisal rules. I would ask for a follow up.

Urgh I had a review like this once - basically said my work was really good but i needed to do more to make senior management aware of me so they would consider my promotion I got really upset in the appraisal (probably not the way to handle it) but afterwards I spoke to my manager again and said it wasn't fair for me to be penalised for being quieter than some of my colleagues who felt the need to shout about every piece of work they did.

It's basically shit line management. If I were you I would ask your manager for really actionable advice about how they expect you to address the 'issue', so you have specific targets you can prove you're hitting etc.

Thanks everyone. The feedback itself wasn't new as such but there's a complicated back story I won't bore you with! It was more that they totally ignored all my work and other achievements and literally only talked about visibility when there's so much more to a job than that