More of Us Will Get Harsh Reviews This Year. Here’s What to Do About It.

livemint.com:

Chances are your boss will give you some brutal feedback this year. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. This moment in workplaces is all about efficiency, and corporate leaders want employees operating at full capacity.

Trimming costs where they can, they’re not fretting if an underperformer walks away. Long gone is the pandemic era of work, when managers gave performance issues a pass. Back then, hiring, not firing, was the order of the day, and companies feared tough love would drive away stressed-out talent.

Businesses’ mantra now is: “Make sure every seat is filled by the right person," says Dave Carhart, people-strategy adviser at human-resources software company Lattice. In fact, performance management, as it’s known in HR speak, is the priority for nearly 40% of HR professionals this year, the highest share in recent years, survey data from Lattice show. McKinsey, for example, recently put about 3,000 staffers on notice with unsatisfactory performance ratings, according to people familiar with the matter.

All of which means your review may sting a bit more than usual this year. Or sap your esteem or enthusiasm. You can bounce back from a bad review, and even parlay it into an opportunity to demonstrate your problem-solving powers.

What’s important is to keep your defensive impulses in check and come up with a clear-eyed response plan. Once you walk it off, a negative review could be the reality check you need to get your job back on track—or to find a new one that is more fulfilling. Open your eyes Erik Post says he was blindsided a few years ago with a review that said he met, but didn’t exceed, expectations.