Measuring personal performance

ashrobbo

ashrobbo

ashrobbo

Associate
Joined
3 May 2009
Posts
805
Hi All,

Its that time of year where payrises and bonuses are being considered..

how do you go about getting them and what kind of stats/information do you go armed with?

I work in IT support in a SME and there is no real 'goals' I just do what I need to.

I'm aiming to get more responsibility but dont really know how to go about it,

Cheers,

Ash
 
Setting goals
I dont subscribe to any of this and management hate me for it :) , but most organisations set Key Performance Indicators, which are basically Goals which can be Measured.

The aim is to get goals which are defined clearly and understandable to both the employee and the manager and are achievable.

Look around at what you do, what you would like to do and what you could do but dont currently have the time/resources/power to do.

What are the aspects of yours and other peoples jobs which really take the most time, or are really inefficient.

Review time
Measure yourself against your objectives. Add any unmeasured tasks/projects you have been involved in. Especially if they raised productivity, reduced costs or make other people more effective.

Focus on your successes. Dont bring up failures unless they do, and then don't get defensive, just be realistic.

Bring up any training you need to do your job - or the next job.

Do not go into it with the mindset of 'inflation, everyday costs etc. are all up therefore I deserve a payrise', in the current climate everyone is being squeezed.
 
HarryPainful said:
You must know what systems you are running?

Get some books and learn more about them, ask to be involved more, use your initiative.
Click to expand...

Yes I do know the systems we are running, I put half of them together.
Were a 2 man team so some systems we have inherited, but I still know how they all function to be able to support people, but that isn't my issue, im asking how do I get across my worth to the business?

skyripper said:
Setting goals
I dont subscribe to any of this and management hate me for it :) , but most organisations set Key Performance Indicators, which are basically Goals which can be Measured.

The aim is to get goals which are defined clearly and understandable to both the employee and the manager and are achievable.

Look around at what you do, what you would like to do and what you could do but dont currently have the time/resources/power to do.

What are the aspects of yours and other peoples jobs which really take the most time, or are really inefficient.

Review time
Measure yourself against your objectives. Add any unmeasured tasks/projects you have been involved in. Especially if they raised productivity, reduced costs or make other people more effective.

Focus on your successes. Dont bring up failures unless they do, and then don't get defensive, just be realistic.

Bring up any training you need to do your job - or the next job.

Do not go into it with the mindset of 'inflation, everyday costs etc. are all up therefore I deserve a payrise', in the current climate everyone is being squeezed.
Click to expand...

Very Useful Thanks, I am currently studying towards my MCSE and eventually MCITP, thats my own initiative thought and not something the business is putting me through.

Good advice about inflation etc, I'd never go asking because my personal situation changed but ive seen far too many people make that mistake such as 'i've got a kid on the way give me more money' in no way is that the businesses issue.

We do a have a IT support sharepoint list with all of our jobs on, so i can figure out how many I have completed in the past 12 months, might be a good start.
 
1. Do you enjoy your job
2. Do you enjoy giving that value added time after work hours
3. Do you get to enjoy an active social life in the evenings
4. Do you like seafood
5. What do you want to do and does your current job return on that personal requirement

If the above as a percentage answers 51% no move on.
 
my fathers the ceo of a large freight company and hes always told me that the people who get promoted arnt the ones with the degrees and letters after there name its the ones with initative who go to there superiors and tell them the problems the workers are having and ways they could be more productive. it gets you noticed very quickly if your always suggesting ways the company can do more without hireing new people as nobody wants to spend more money if they dont have to in this current climate.
 
Now is too late to be talking about this, what you need to do at the start of the year is set out your goals for the year and how they will be measured (agree this with your boss) then at the end of the year go back and demonstrate how you exceeded all these goals and also delivered x,y and z extra so you believe you deserve to be paid more.

Well that the theory but in practice you'll do all that and then they will say we'd love to give you a big rise and really think you deserve it but it's been a tough year and there is just no money in the budget for a pay rise, maybe next year.

In my experience there are two ways to get a decent pay rise:
1. Find another job, tell your boss and say you'll stay for X amount and hope he bites.
2. Find another job and actually take it.

Yes it's possible to get rises year on year and promotions but it will very rarely equate to the same amount you'd get from looking elsewhere.

101001101 said:
1. Do you enjoy your job
2. Do you enjoy giving that value added time after work hours
3. Do you get to enjoy an active social life in the evenings
4. Do you like seafood
5. What do you want to do and does your current job return on that personal requirement

If the above as a percentage answers 51% no move on.
Click to expand...

Only 20% yes and thats just because I love seafood, I agree I need a new career but then I've always thought anyone who does 2 without pay is an idiot so I guess I could bump my self to 25% by ditching that question!
 
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I recently got a pay rise by going through my original job spec/profile and highlighting all the extra stuff that I'm now doing that wasnt originally in there. It took a long time to finally get upgraded, but now im at the bottom of the next scale, so I can also get incrimental (point) pay rises again each year, when everyone else is on `cost of living` rises.

This is public sector IT, so we dont really have many targets or performance related pay.
 
skyripper said:
Do not go into it with the mindset of 'inflation, everyday costs etc. are all up therefore I deserve a payrise', in the current climate everyone is being squeezed.
Click to expand...

That's entirely the best argument unless you can demonstrate you're delivering added value to the business above what can be expected of somebody in your position (and a large number of people in corporate IT aren't doing that to be honest).

Inflation *is* a good reason. If you aren't getting pay rises in line with inflation they are cutting your pay in real terms, accepting the 'everybody is being squeezed' line is for idiots. If you do you're accepting a pay cut, which, unless your performance has gone downhill since the last pay review, is a fairly stupid thing to do.

You need to set targets sensibly with your boss, then evaluate them. My view is that achieving targets is grounds for a bonus but not a pay rise. Pay rises above inflation are on merit, which means doing the job particularly well, achieving targets in-spite of problems or achieving more things which are valuable to the business that weren't on your target list. You don't get pay rises (above inflation at least) for turning up.
 
ashrobbo said:
Hi All,

Its that time of year where payrises and bonuses are being considered..

how do you go about getting them and what kind of stats/information do you go armed with?

I work in IT support in a SME and there is no real 'goals' I just do what I need to.

I'm aiming to get more responsibility but dont really know how to go about it,

Cheers,

Ash
Click to expand...

Specifically for you...

- If you don't have set goals then you're unlikely to get a bonus unless you can demonstrate you've done your job particularly well. Can you say you improved uptime by X% year on year. Or that response/fix time for faults is down by Y minutes on last years figures.

Bonuses *should* be paid for achieving targets, if you can't point to targets or at least quantifiable improvements you've not much hope. (with the caveat that few businesses really run they're compensation so well and it usually comes down to the corporate bonus pool being x% and your manager deciding based on their unscientific, personal view of your performance that you can have y% of that.

- Payrises should be at least in line with inflation except in a very few circumstances. Your pay should stay the same in real terms purchasing power year on year even if you're not getting anything above that.

For a pay rise above that, generally you need to have taken on additional responsibilities, have done an exceptional job or similar in the last year. You don't get a pay rise for doing your job and achieving your targets.

Your best bet is to go talk to your boss about that and say exactly that, that you want to progress, would appreciate earning a bit more but you're unclear how best to do so as you don't have explicit targets.

You should be aware though, SMB IT is unrewarded in this area for a reason, most SMBs want their IT to work and enable the rest of the business to do thing. It's not a growth area for them, it's a service which enables them to do things, like their finance team is, they want it done well but don't want the costs to escalate because it hits the bottom line and doesn't have a directly linked business benefit.
 
bigredshark said:
Specifically for you...

- If you don't have set goals then you're unlikely to get a bonus unless you can demonstrate you've done your job particularly well. Can you say you improved uptime by X% year on year. Or that response/fix time for faults is down by Y minutes on last years figures.

Bonuses *should* be paid for achieving targets, if you can't point to targets or at least quantifiable improvements you've not much hope. (with the caveat that few businesses really run they're compensation so well and it usually comes down to the corporate bonus pool being x% and your manager deciding based on their unscientific, personal view of your performance that you can have y% of that.

- Payrises should be at least in line with inflation except in a very few circumstances. Your pay should stay the same in real terms purchasing power year on year even if you're not getting anything above that.

For a pay rise above that, generally you need to have taken on additional responsibilities, have done an exceptional job or similar in the last year. You don't get a pay rise for doing your job and achieving your targets.

Your best bet is to go talk to your boss about that and say exactly that, that you want to progress, would appreciate earning a bit more but you're unclear how best to do so as you don't have explicit targets.

You should be aware though, SMB IT is unrewarded in this area for a reason, most SMBs want their IT to work and enable the rest of the business to do thing. It's not a growth area for them, it's a service which enables them to do things, like their finance team is, they want it done well but don't want the costs to escalate because it hits the bottom line and doesn't have a directly linked business benefit.
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Thanks bigredshark, Your posts are really very helpful and informative, im going to approach my manager and discuss maybe targets I can achieve next year and what I can do more.

I hear you with the SMB IT 'Role' and didnt really give it much thought. DOes anybody know roughly how to find inflation % information?
 
bigredshark said:
Payrises should be at least in line with inflation except in a very few circumstances. Your pay should stay the same in real terms purchasing power year on year
Click to expand...

Regardless of whether that 'should' happen, the evidence suggests that it is certainly far more than just 'very few circumstances' where it doesn't. For example studies have shown that the median pay rise in the UK is below 3% (versus ~5% inflation). Some might argue that the studies could be commissioned by people with a vested interest in keeping wage inflation down, but I've yet to see any counter-evidence to refute such studies.

ashrobbo: if you really want to look up inflation information it is all on the bank of england website.

My recommendation is to be reasonably direct in terms of saying where you want to get to (not just in terms of salary but responsibilities to sit alongside that salary) and then seek their views on what they believe you need to achieve in order to warrant that. Then build some objectives around that so that come your next review, you can point to this and say "OK, last time we outlined that I needed to achieve XYZ, here is the evidence to prove that I had done so".

I'm not saying there aren't companies that will pro-actively reward staff for being good at their jobs without any sort of formal performance monitoring, but in many cases the person who signs off on pay rises will need something a bit more compelling than "Joe Bloggs is a good worker, lets bump him up by 10%".

Finally in terms of the concept of SMB IT being an enabler (a tool for the business rather than something which shapes the business), maybe one thing you could look at if you want to be a bit off the wall is seeing what sort of MI is produced and whether you can improve on it. If you could for example highlight potential problem areas, cost savings or whatever through the use of MI then it could illustrate your value to the company beyond just "IT bod who keeps things running".
 
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