Thursday, December 16, 2010

3 down, 6 to go

Annual employee performance review forms that is. It's always hard to evaluate someone's performance especially when you're considering the entire year. Essentially I have to boil all that down to a number between 1 and 5 that will then be used determine their raise for the following year.And their performance throughout the year determines my raise so I want to keep them happy and productive.  It's a symbiotic relationship between management and people who actually do the real work. I'm growing into my new role as manager more and more. I'm not sure whether I really enjoy it as much as slinging code, but I'm getting better at it. I try to continually remind myself that my job is to enable others to do their jobs better. I don't get to do some of the fun stuff, but I do get the reward that comes with orchestrating a successful project completion. I try to stay out of their way and be a buffer from the agonizing administrative details of contracting, proposal writing, and other necessary but painful overhead. And I get some satisfaction from doing that effectively.

So at the end of this year, looking back on the work that everyone is done I can relax and do my best to see that everyone remains happy and productive in the coming year.

Now back to those review forms.