My manager lied on my performance review

[Anawana]

I feel completely blindsided.

Over the last year, despite having a divorce and dealing with loads in my personal life, I put immense effort at work. I was given more and more responsibilities too, which made me think they trust my abilities. Never received any negative feedback during my weekly 1:1s with my manager.

Yesterday I had my year end review. My manager scored me 'moderate contribution', stating that that's what most of the company got. I'd scored myself at the 'good contribution' level. I'd be fine with his rating, if his reasons weren't blatant lies.

He claims that I said 'I don't give a s*it about what my grandboss thinks'. He is unable to produce evidence of this or even tell me when this incident happened. I gasped when I heard him claiming that and told him in absolutely no circumstance did I say anything along those lines to him. His attitude was 'pfff Anawana, of course you'd say you did't say such thing.' And that was that.

There were other blatant lies, as well as twisted truths in his review. What do you think they're trying to do here? Time for job search?

Whatever they are trying to do, there should be a clear and written list of criteria for what constitutes "good", "moderate" etc.

All employees should have access to the guidelines.

Ask to see them. If you have been graded "moderate" based on one utterance that has nothing to do with your actual performance then your line manager needs to document when and to whom you said it. If what you (supposedly) said was so serious that it reflects on your overall performance then it should have been flagged for a disciplinary issue at the time.

Your performance and contribution may well be moderate, but unless you've seen the criteria, (and examples of your "moderateness" from your manager) it's impossible to say.

Moderate contribution is pretty damning too unless that's related to a very specific thing. Like do you contribute in team meetings and you generally don't. I'd go to HR.

Yeah I'd go to HR.

For a start, the review shouldn't be about what someone said to someone else (allegedly) but your actual performance in post.

And if there was any rumour about using inappropriate language like "not giving a shit" he should have called an immediate 1-2-1 with you to discuss, and he didn't.

Nothing in an annual review should come as a surprise. Going by my experience you're being moved into 'face doesn't fit' zone.

He claims that I said 'I don't give a sit about what my grandboss thinks'. He is unable to produce evidence of this or even tell me when this incident happened*

I had a response like this when I raised the issue of the office clique (in hindsight painting a target on my back as the manager concerned was part of it). All of a sudden people had complained about me being rude but oddly she couldn't pin down any specific examples or respond when I said to bring this person/s into the meeting and I'll apologise right now.

That was the start of my decision to get out. I think long term (next few months) you should be planning seriously for that. Short term, write a cool factual response and send it to HR. I'd refuse to sign the review, as well.

That's not ok. As a manager I've had people disagree with my end of year rating and involve HR. I had to fairly robustly evidence why I'd made that assessment, based on their role criteria as well as evidence times I'd discussed it with them in-year (which is fair and I could). This sounds unbelievably subjective.

Same has happened to me for the past two years, but decided for this year id not care anymore. I've worked so hard for years and put in alot of hours, but when they rate people only a certain number of people can be a certain grade.

My old manager tried to pip me. The director held off because he said it would discourage me.
She remained difficult for a couple of years despite me doing 75% of her job but she half gave up bothering me as she started wfh.
We had odd run ins sometimes.
Worse that happened was she questioned why I was entitled to an above inflation pay rise and never officially acknowledged my contribution

You need to challenge this.

The review should be based on evidence and I would query why issues with your performance were not raised earlier in the year so you could address them.

Contact HR and state that you are shocked that your manager is claiming you said something contentious but cannot even give a date/any details of when this would have happened. I would also question that if was true why the manager did not address it at the time and give you a warning.

Frankly as a manager myself I would consider sacking the person who is making these allegations without evidence and who obviously does not know how to manage their team.

This happened to me. I stayed calm, contacted HR and even though I didn't see what happened I know there were behind the scenes churnings and changes.

However it was part of a shit ton of awful workplace issues, amd I left as soon as I could.
You must challenge this.