AIBU to take this to HR?

[Stayinganontoday]

There’s a lot of context, but in nutshell I wasn’t properly onboard and gave worked as an “island” for the past 7 months. I was given to my manager I believe like 4 months ago we had an intro call and that was it.

During that she’s pinged me about CRM hygiene but nothing else. Nothing has ever been explained to me and when we met 4 months ago I clearly said that.

She (in theory) was part of my quarterly goals and all that jazz but never discussed or anything. We had never had a regular 1:1 until yesterday.

My grievance is that completely as a passing comment she told me that she scored me super low on my role expectations but ironically because I do my job so well I got more than 100% my expected bonus. I’m just not good at the admin side that nobody has cared to explain.

My “office HR” is aware of her shortcomings but my contact is leaving and my low scores could prevent me from getting a promotion (I need 3 quarters of performing at the expected standard - yet that standard has never been properly explained even though my manager claims it has-)

So would you let it me now making a point of understanding what on earth she wants and doing it? Or get my HR contact to at ieast add a note to my file?

This makes no sense. If your performance is so good that you're getting an enhanced bonus, what are the low scores for?

Not updating the CRM…. Different aspect have different views weights and it’s possible to get a 120-150% bonus if I remember correctly. I got 110%

Id speak to the HR contact that you know, and ask their advice. This all seems very odd

What’s odd about it? The bonus?

Your post is very hard to follow, but I think that you mean you are completing your everyday tasks very well, but not some kind of paperwork that your manager has not explained to you. So you have a great score on your everyday tasks but poor marks for paperwork. is that correct?

Can you chase down your manager and get them to show you the paperwork again? Or is there anyone else in a parallel role who could show you the paperwork.

going back to HR to get a note added that you were not trained in the paperwork would also be useful.

Can we have this in English please, OP!

It’s cause my role has cold metrics (I bring money in and excel at it) and the admin tasks which I was scored low on. However, those admin tasks have never been explained to me, and I made a point of this to my manager last time I met her (4 months ago) and she told me there was nothing to learn.

She’s now changed her tune, and told me they were on some system (that we don’t use in the UK) and that she told me about it (she didn’t) thus giving me the low score.

That changes the HR paragraph: the issue isn’t getting HR to recognise the lack of onboarding from scratch, but ensuring the existing context and the circumstances behind the scores are documented before your contact leaves.
I’d appreciate some outside perspectives on a work situation, as I’m torn between two approaches.
For context, I joined my company seven months ago and, due to a lack of proper onboarding, have essentially been working as an island. I was assigned a manager around four months ago. We had an introductory call, during which I explicitly explained that a lot of things hadn’t been explained to me, but that was pretty much the extent of our interaction.
Since then, she’s occasionally messaged me about CRM hygiene, but we’ve never had regular 1:1s until yesterday. My quarterly goals and role expectations have never really been discussed with me in any meaningful way.
Yesterday, almost as a passing comment, she mentioned that she’d scored me very poorly against my role expectations.
Here’s where it gets confusing: I’m receiving 110% of my expected bonus because my actual performance and results have exceeded my targets, yet I’ve scored very poorly on another aspect of my role. The issue seems to be the administrative side of the job, which I’ve never been properly onboarded on or had explained to me.
So, while I’m delivering results, I’m apparently failing against expectations that I don’t feel were ever clearly communicated. When we first spoke four months ago, I explicitly raised the fact that things hadn’t been explained to me, but nothing really changed.
HR is already aware of the lack of onboarding, and this has been formally documented. They’re also aware of the lack of ongoing feedback. However, my HR contact is now leaving, and I’m concerned about ensuring this context is properly captured before they go.
The reason this matters is that I need three consecutive quarters of performing at the expected standard to be eligible for promotion. My concern is that these low scores could affect that eligibility, despite the lack of proper onboarding and feedback. My manager maintains that the expectations were communicated, but that hasn’t been my experience.
So, what would you do in my position?
Option 1: Draw a line under the past, make a point of getting absolute clarity on what’s expected going forward, and focus on meeting those expectations.
Option 2: Ask HR to ensure the existing documentation also captures the circumstances behind these scores, particularly given their potential impact on future promotion.
I’m not necessarily looking to escalate this into a major confrontation, but I also don’t want to let something potentially career-limiting go unchallenged simply because I’m now in a position to correct things going forward.
Would you do both, just one, or something else entirely?

PS ChatGPT re wrote it!

I understood your first post perfectly, and in the company I work for I would want to know about this (I'm HR). I'd ask to see you onboarding plan as you're concerned you're being scored against criteria you've not had training on or been told is an expectation and take it from there rather than go in with a complaint from the off. There are employment law changes coming in next year where they're going to have to be able to demonstrate that that they've provided training and outlined clearly any performance issues if they were to let you go, so I'd be taking what you tell me about your experience and joining dots to potential future risk so would want to get it sorted.

Edited to add - option 2!

Thank you! I thought I was going mad ha!

but yes my onboarding (or lack of it) is fully documented .

so the main to document now is the lack of communication (which HR is aware as noted during my probation call).

as abbie above says, i’d email your manager that and see what she says. it gives her time to put something in place to address the issues you have raised.

depending on what she says you could then email hr before your contact leaves so somethimg is recorded. even if it’s just along the lines of an update to the previous discussions about a lack of onboarding where i explained that i had not received guidance on xyz admin systems and had not had monthly 1-2-1s with my line manager etc etc.
and save the email chain which should have everything relevant on it. just in case you subsequently need it.

there should be desk instructions for your job.

years ago i worked in a school and they trained me up during the holidays so i had no live paperwork to do at the time and then they complained that i couldn't do it while acknowledging i’d never had the opportunity. a colleague in the same position the following year went for constructive dismissal and won. i just left as i thought if they were that ignorant of staff needs and best practice, what else were they crap at….

We now have working, live document.

I’m more about being down scored when it wasn’t properly communicated, but my manager claim it was, so it will be a “I said, she said”, and probably not worth fighting.

i still feel a note about this should be made (somewhere).

Draw a line under it and make sure you understand everything going forward.
Maybe email your manager with a summary of what you understand to be the requirements and get her to agree that's correct, so there will be evidence she's signed off on the procedure you'll be following.
I don't think going to HR is going to achieve anything. A note would only say you claimed it hadn't been explained and manager disagreed, so it doesn't look any better for you as a new employer against the word of a presumably trusted manager, and will sour your relationship with her.
In many roles hopes of promotion will be influenced by manager feedback and will include other traits than whether you bring the money in, so if I were you, I'd cool your heels abd concentrate on getting everything right in your current role.
If your manager isn't a proactive communicator, then take control and instigate it yourself.

Yes, that’s more or less what I think I’ll do.

Ultimately m, as far the people who work with me know, I have stellar feedback and I’m doing a fantastic job, but we’re a different region and a differ department, so I don’t think my manager cares.

One good thing that happened yesterday, was that my managers, manager, manager (so two levels
above her) saw me present , and I think I did a great job!

That's really good to get noticed.
Unfortunately those opportunities are often quite rare and so much of the opinion seniors will have of you will come up the chain from your own manager. So they are your most important relationship. Managers can have their faults, but learning to navigate them by managing up is essential.
Focus on getting the communication you need in writing, while otherwise trying to build a positive relationship with them.

Yes, ironically I have a closer relationship with him (we have monthly check ins) than with her ha!

but yes praising and making her feel nothing is a big deal is what I’m working on!!

I would speak with HR and ask for a note to be made on the file. But there is an element of personal accountability missing her. Your manager mentioned the health of CRM as important and from that point you need to address it irrespective of the performance requirements. If you are not given the right onboarding that's on them, but you have been there for 7 months and it sounds like you have buried your head in the sand about the other requirements of your role, instead of looking into it. If you are working for a big corporate, as I understand, then there will be loads of information available on many of this and for sure on performance evaluations. Or you can ask colleagues. Often sales and similar roles consider the only role is meeting targets, but that's rarely the case. Ultimately your performance is your responsibility and if you are not given the information you should be given, then you should seek it out.

But I did ask about it (to her!) and she said there was nothing to learn.

and there are some guides for certain things (which is what I’ve followed).

but as an example, I thought the CRM automatically added contacts from our emails, but it turns out it doesn’t.

and I don’t have direct colleagues (in the sense of the same role), the ones I have are across the pond and I have no relationship with them. So the odd question sure (which I have) but I can’t rely on them being my only source of knowledge.

I can hold my hand and be aware that I need to get better, but I can’t know what I don’t know, particularly when I openly asked her about it, and she said there was nothing to it.

Plus I’ve been busy saving and retaining the revenue for the whole region, which is the role of two people (my “helper”) starts in a week.

Does anyone know what ‘CRM hygiene’ means? I’ve not heard of that body part!

so your low scores were due to skill/knowledge gaps you’d asked for help with
In 7 months I would of taken the initiative escalated this and followed it up
but you seem to of mentioned and done nothing else then going not my fault
you say your manager has it contacted you once it works both ways why didn’t you contact her

Is there any written evidence from your manager that she told you about these admin tasks?

I have though! Multiple times during my first 3 months, then I finally met with her, she told me there was nothing to learn. So I just started doing intuitively and I did tell her at the time, please if you notice something let me know, as there’s no guidance anywhere. And we agreed to that.

Which is why I was surprised about the down score

Unless you are very junior, I wouldn't think you'd need to be taught 'admin'. That's kind of basic, isn't it? It sounds like you have a skill gap and you need to self develop. I'd suggest putting it on your PDP and seeking out opportunities to learn. Job shadow a colleague maybe?

the type of admin is not that “basic” and every company calculates it differently too.

many have automated systems (past 5 years have been the case for me), so as long the notes are updated the rest is handled by the software.

OK, but what are you doing to self develop now that you've identified a skill gap?