I agree with Mary. Also, when you do your work for a manager and the manager is happy, you automatically expect the new manager to be happy too. After all, you are good in what you are doing.
If your new manager thinks otherwise, sit down and find out what he/she expects; what do they want; what do they like and/or dislike and take it from there. Good luck.

I do not believe you have to sign an evaluation. You can write comments explaining how you disagree addressing all bad points of the evaluation. Then the supervisor needs to sign your ammendments to the evaluation, then you can sign it. This will then state that your supervisor agrees with your ammendments. If she refuses to sign it, then you don't sign it.

Nothing was accomplished by refusing to sign the performance review. You aren't signing that you agree with it - you are just acknowledging that it was gone over with you. It is for everyones protection that both parties sign. You are well within your rights to put your comments in the review and whenever you disagree with the results you should indicate that, but I do not think it is going to reflect well that you "refused" to sign it.

I agree with Fellow Admin Asst. Make sure you do not get emotional (heated, angry, frustrated). Stay professional and calm. State your case. Make your points. Be flexible and helpful by offering to make changes. You will be heard a lot louder this way.

I agree with the above comments. It is always best to think of performance reviews as a learning tool. Although some may come across harsh and may seem as if its an attack on you, generally, its not suppose to be. A professional manager's goal is to help each of their employee become a more well-rounded, valuable and marketable employee. Unfortunately, some do not practice that and they use Performance reviews to hack away at their subordinate, especially, if there's a personality conflict. In essence, if you are not performing up to standard that should be addressed in advance and you are given an opportunity to improve prior to review time. Your review should not be a surprise to you.

A new manager with honorable intent, could have spoken to HR about the fact that they are new and may not have had enough time to evaluate your performance, or they could have gotten some feedback from your previous manager to get a better picture of you or they could have looked at your previous reviews. Since, none of that was done, it leads me to believe that there may be personal issues involved (i.e, they may not like your personality or your work style differs from theirs), or they may be an inexperienced manager. Either way, you should have a one on one conversation with your manager and find out what the underlying issues are. Tell him/her what you mentioned above and see where their coming from. Refusing to sign could be viewed as insubordination and immediately evokes hostile feelings that could hinder a healthy work environment. Although they are new, the company usually supports their manager's decision. So, it may be best to try and work it out before going further. I support Jocelyn's recommendation.

Good Luck!

When HR questions you, be honest, tell them why you wrote down what you wrote. They need to know if there is a lack of communication between the new manager and the employees. If you do not get the feed back how can you change the things they want you to change.

In an ideal world, there are no surprises in a performance review because regular feedback is provided throughout the review period. The above contributors have provided some great points.

This situation is also a great reminder that 1) regardless of position, it's often important to know how to manage "up"; 2) ultimate responsibility for our performance lies with us; and 3) two-way communication is important. When you are in a new relationship, whether it's you who is new to the company or position, or a new team member or manager joins your group, you have an opportunity to be proactive and request a meeting to talk about expectations. Sometimes even the smallest details have to be worked out. (Does the closed door mean "knock and come in if you have a question, I want to focus on a project" or "do not disturb AT ALL" or "do not disturb unless it's a call from XXX"?) Schedule time to talk about expectations for the role and guidelines for achieving a top work performance rating. If your manager doesn't schedule time to provide regular feedback throughout the review period, take the initiative to schedule follow up meetings to check in to ensure everything is on track. These meetings don't have to take much time; sometimes five minutes is sufficient and it's time well spent to avoid a surprising and disappointing outcome at review time.

What’s the gift for you in this situation? You have an opportunity to use your problem-solving, initiative, leadership, and communication skills to turn things around. It provides a great example for you if you find yourself interviewing for another position internally or externally.

Best of luck!

This is a tough situation. My company’s fiscal year ends in May. Last year on June 25th (3 weeks into new fiscal year) I found out while on vacation, that my manager's position was eliminated and he did not tell me that this happened before I left. So I scrambled when I got back from my trip to find a new manager and found one. It was then that performance review deadlines were given. Since my prior manager was no longer at the company, the new one had to do my review and it was almost blank since he was from an acquisition and had not worked with me before. Therefore, as "gohuhges" mentions above, I had to sign it and my manager said unable to review due to org changes. The signing of the review is just so that both parties have seen it. It does not mean you agree with it. Hope this is helpful.

Hey team.

A couple of quick things.

First EXCELLENT feedback and suggestions from all the posts! Wow!

(1) No one HAS to sign anything, in actuality. Meaning no one has to sign a job application (okay, they probably will not get hired, but you all know what I am trying to say!) No one has to do or sign anything in terms of HR. However; (pause)----they may be consequences among different companies if one does NOT sign a form or document, don't get me wrong.

In 2009, most companies will allow an employee NOT to sign a performance evaluation review and simply take a note and write "so-so REFUSED to sign".

Be careful about what you sign, in some companies, once you sign your name to a performance review you are basically saying "hey I read the performance review, I wrote my little comments and I am done with it, I'm moving on". I had one such case of a Hispanic worker that did not speak very good English and did not read English very well. She thought she could take her a copy of her review home and have someone help her re-write it, stating why she disagreed.

Well it turned out that the company had in "small print", please submit your feedback now and sign the form or refuse to sign the form and bring in supporting documentation. Team, it was a MESS and I mean a HOT MESS for me to go through legal and all of the red tape to get (1) her performance review changed from poor performer to average performer, and then I had to fight (really with boxing gloves on!) the accounting department to get her retro pay for the money she missed while fighting about her performance review!

When I got this all straighten out I took 3 days off from the office! True story!

Oh since then the company has changed its performance review policies and actually gives a copy of the performance review 7 days before the employee meets with their supervisor (example: Molly’s review is May 1, 2009, Molly will receive a copy of her performance review evaluation at least 7 days before her May 1, 2009 review with her supervisor/team). This allows time for the employee to digest what has been written, to do their own research, and to prepare type written statements in advance to be placed in their employee folder (if applicable). It really works well and the employees seem to really appreciate the fact that they get to read and re-read their evals in advance, and in the privacy of their own homes at a time that is convenient for them. (I had an performance eval given to me once, 10 minutes before I met with my supervisor, I did not even get to read it all before, I was in the meeting with my supervisor! I felt so rushed, unprepared, and disrespected!)

A best practice in human resources is to give a list of options on the back of the performance evaluation form {or an additional sheet stapled to EACH eval}, including (how to file a formal grievance with the company, EEOC contact information, Human Relations Board contact information, chain of command for the company, wage and hour information, my human resources direct contact information, e-mail addresses of the top three superiors in our region, and the corporate office contact information.) Now you all can ONLY do this if you are secure in your professional “skin” and you operate with integrity, professionalism, on the up and up. I know many professionals that would not dare list all of this stuff on the employee performance evaluation, for obvious reasons or out of fear the employee may actually use those options. I tell people all the time it is best to deal with stuff head on and in the present time, rather than let it brew over weeks, months, years, or decades! (Just a suggestion, I wanted to share. The feedback I have received is that the employees feel as if they have options IF they agree/dis-agree with their performance evaluation reviews.)

One last thing, I HATE when there are surprises on the employee’s annual performance evaluation review. Two things have usually happened, (1) the supervisor/manager has NOT provided continual feedback and/or documentation and the supervisor/manager has NOT shared this information with the employee (thus creating a SURPRISE eval), and (2) the employee did not ask for regular feedback and/or did not take the feedback given from their supervisor/manager and thus is “SURPRISED” at their poor performance rating. Both of these types of situations can be eliminated by using due diligence and being pro-active in your work; regardless if you are a supervisor/manager or the employee being supervised.

Both sides should DOCUMENT, DOUCMENT, DOCUMENT and DOCUMENT again, to ensure proper documentation is in place, IF a court case should arise.

Thank you team for sharing this with me. I learn so much from this forum! Have a great weekend everyone!

Very Sincerely,


Dr. C. :)