To feel disappointed my annual review has been demoted from in person to on teams?

[Celia24]

My manager is notoriously unorganized and quite often reschedules our 1 to 1s which usually take place online.

We all work remotely apart from one day a week when everyone is in the office. The other manager has been having all his annual reviews in person on that day and my manager invited me do to the same, a room was booked out for it.

He has now said 'sorry I'm double booked' and rescheduled for last thing on Friday on Teams when we work online. Is it just me or is this a bit crap?

I think it would be perfectly reasonable to say that you'd prefer to do the appraisal in person and ask to postpone it to the next office day.

What difference does it make? The content will be the same.

@TheFlis12345 maybe it will be - it's just the fact that even on days in the office I never get time with him for more than ten minutes if I'm lucky. He's always pulled into other things. I think there's still something to be said for proper eye contact and body language etc.

Maybe you're right and it's not worth making a big deal about.

Is there anything in particular you wanted to raise with him?

I'd request it's rearranged to in person next time you're in office together. I also hate 1 to 1s via teams and if people are working from home some of the time they should recognise that not everyone likes or gets as much out of teams and other online meetings and to be prepared to plan their days in office accordingly.

@Floralie I think the fact he had initially booked it to be in the office proves he thinks that's what's best.

But clearly he realises something more important has come up 😀 when he says he double booked there was definitely nothing else in his diary.

I get it OP, it's like he's saying your appraisal isn't particularly high up his list of priorities which is a very poor message to send to a direct report and poor management on his part. No harm in saying can we reschedule to the next in person day as originally planned.

I can’t quite understand what the issue is. Is there something that you wanted to say that’d come across easier in person? If not then I don’t see the problem. It’s not like he’s completely cancelled it

I worked with someone quite senior. In one call during covid he disclosed that both him and his wife worked from home and they would sit down in the morning and go through their diaries and see where they clashed and decide who had the most important calls that day and whoever had the least important call would be in charge of supervising their kids. After that we always knew were we were considered a not very important meeting 😂

anyway, I get what you mean, it's not nice to have the feeling that something important to you and your career is far down his list of priorities. But that said, I would try not read too much into it. He sounds a bit rubbish generally so it doesn't sound personal.

I get it - I get hardly any of my managers time, and I really value the in-person conversation when I do.

I'd just politely say you are happy to wait as you'd prefer an in-person conversation.

I've never met my manager so Teams is completely normal in my opinion. I have 9 people reporting to me in 5 countries, so I do all my performance reviews via Teams, unless they coincide with a business trip to that country

I’d prefer this. I don’t see why you’re so keen to be in the same room as him. There’s nothing that can’t be said remotely.