In episode 31 of The HR Famous Podcast, longtime HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee discuss Google’s move to a very uncool/unhip annual performance review cycle (called a “perf,” which is dangerously close to bad stuff), David Blaine’s recent dangerous endeavor, and the latest CHRO move of the week involving IBM’s new HR leader.
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1:30 – Did you watch David Blaine’s balloon descension excursion? Tim doesn’t think that he’s human.
4:30 – Do you ever dress up at home just to feel better? JLee dressed up today because she’s sick of athleisure.
5:30 – Time for the CHRO Move of the Week! IBM Senior Vice President of HR and CHRO Diane Gherson announced her successor, Nickle LaMoreaux, this week as she has decided to retire. JLee commends IBM for this classy move of publicly passing the gauntlet onto their next CHRO.
9:00 – KD points out her former positions at IBM and how that helped her get into the top HR spot at the company.
12:00 – KD talks about how IBM was one of the first to move people to remote work and also the first to take it away, and why it had a number of lawsuits around age discrimination based on allegations of a strategy to bring in younger people that would cost less.
14:20 – The HR Famous crew doesn’t know what IBM does anymore! Does this mean that they’re on the outs?
15:00 – Who remembers the old adage, “No one ever got fired for buying IBM”? JLee has never heard it, but Tim and KD remember those days.
17:00 – Next topic of the day: Business Insider published an article about Google’s performance reviews being resumed and how some employees are concerned that the new 12-month cycle will hurt their chances for promotions.
18:00 – Internally, Google’s performance reviews are known as “perf.” That’s something the HR Famous crew has never seen! Tim sees this as a sign as Google growing up. The gang also has fun with the word “perf,” which borders on the worst corporate slang ever.
21:30 – A lot of companies had to or chose to pause performance reviews during the beginning of the pandemic. KD thinks it was a good move to pause performance reviews for the first months of the pandemic to allow employees to focus on other worries.
24:30 – JLee and Tim comment on how their frustration with the fact that Google employees are so worried about their pay increases when so much else is going on in the world. KD reminds everyone that there are a lot of people in the company that aren’t complaining about their lack of a raise.
27:45 – One of the things that Google is doing to make performance reviews more simple is having employees list up to five of their biggest accomplishments/achievements, but they must say less than 160 words for each item. KD notes the fact that via this strategy, managers at Google are like everyone else -—they’d prefer you write your own review!
28:30 – Reach out to Tim Sackett if you need help writing your perf!
30:30 – Tim laughs at the fact that the pandemic has forced HR to go back in time to once a year performance reviews, when research for years has shown that more frequent performance reviews are more effective.
32:00 – JLee brings up the fact that those with children they are taking care of at home may be negatively affected by performance reviews right now. Tim thinks that people are going to be judged by their performance during the pandemic anyways and there’s not much you can do to change that.
38:30 – Who else has become a cycler in the pandemic? JLee and Tim are now fans!
