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The dreaded performance review draws the ire of employees and managers alike. Workers fret that reviews fail to capture the full scope of their work, or that they are an unfair assessment of their performance. For managers, reviews can be a time-consuming nuisance and involve the challenging task of delivering tough feedback. But a new study from Cornell University finds that the structure of the performance review can have a huge impact on how workers feel about them. Over the last decade, a number of companies have revamped their performance reviews, seemingly to address the long-standing pain points. The likes of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have moved away from numerical ratings, while tech companies like Microsoft eliminated stack rankings (reviews that essentially rank employees against their colleagues) and Adobe eliminated reviews altogether. (More recently, however, tech giants like Google and Meta have actually pushed for more stringent evaluations of employees and, in turn, lower ratings.) The Cornell researchers examined how the shift away from numerical reviews has influenced employee sentiment. Emily Zitek, a professor of organizational behavior, and her coauthors analyzed how employees feel about performance reviews that emphasize narrative or qualitative feedback over numerical rankings. The team looked at three different performance review formats: those that exclusively used either numerical ratings or narrative feedback, and those that employed a mix of both. What the researchers found overall was that employees believed performance reviews were, in fact, more fair when they did not have numbers attached and were purely narrative-driven. Even if they’re given kind of average numbers versus wording that says they were very average, it feels more fair if they just see the words and not the numbers, Zitek says. So we thought that was very interesting. We were originally expecting the combined feedback to still be viewed positively, but people didn’t like the numbers within that either. Employees were also more likely to want to improve their performance if they received narrative feedbackand, more notably, if they felt their review was fair. Obviously, one of the goals is improvement, Zitek says. [If youre] just giving people numbers, they don’t know as much about what they need to do to perform better. But there was an exception: If their reviews were very positive, then people perceived them as fair, regardless of format. People love knowing if they’re at the top, Zitek says. More average ratings, on the other hand, seem to betray an employees self-perceptionwhich is why a more middling review feels more palatable if there is no number attached. Psychology research has shown a lot of people think they are above average, or that they’re doing better than they are, Zitek adds. When they get narrative-only feedback, they’re able to maintain that view because there’s no explicit information showing that they didn’t do well. Thats one of the reasons Zitek and her coauthors argue there is still a place for numerical ratings, in spite of the studys findings: If one of the goals of performance reviews is to determine raises and bonuses, then including numbers-based feedback can be importantand arguably more fair. If employees are deluding themselves that they’re performing really well, sometimes it helps to have the number, she says. Sometimes you want employees to realistically know where they stand. And yes, theyre going to be mad about it; they’re not going to think it’s fair. But that could be important. The reality is that many companies still rely on numerical ratings to make decisions about compensationand if they stop using those metrics in reviews, they may still utilize a ranking system without informing employees. If the company is going to want some kind of number anyway, it seems worse to not tell the employee that number, Zitek says. And that’s what some companies are doingthey have shadow rankings behind the scenes. They don’t tell them to the employees, and then employees are like, Wait, why did I get a smaller bonus than this other person? Regardless of format, one of the most frequent critiques of performance reviews is that they are vulnerable to bias. Even if reviews are standardized across a company, your performance rating can be impacted by a number of variables and often hinges on how your manager or team approaches reviews. A narrative component can help address this issuebut that still depends on how managers are trained and whether they understand the value of proffering real feedback. To ensure managers actually commit to the review process, Zitek says, its important for employers to emphasize the purpose of providing thoughtful feedback. People are more willing to do things if they know why they’re doing it, she says. So it could just be making an effort to convince the managers [that] this isn’t just another box to check. Its also crucial that managers are trained on how to give constructive performance feedback, she addssomething that many employers fail to do effectivelyand that they offer it at a more regular cadence so employees are not surprised when their review rolls around. Feedback can be uncomfortable to give sometimes, Zitek says. But it’s more uncomfortable later if they don’t get promoted and don’t understand whyand they could have been performing better the entire time if they were given that feedback.
Category:
E-Commerce
If you had a severe case of the Sunday Scaries last weekend, you are not alone. Its a sentiment many have been sharing online. Ready or not, with it comes an influx of unread emails, meeting invites, and responsibilitiessmugly pushed to the New Year in the last weeks of Decembernow coming back to haunt us all. Indeed, the first Monday of the year is the Monday-est Monday of all. Oh god, one TikTok user posted on Monday 6th. Everyone is circling back. Worst aesthetic ever: Back to work in the first week of jan, another wrote, riffing on TikToks rare aesthetic trend. Some have used the lyrics to The Smiths Heaven Knows Im Miserable Now” to sum up the feeling of corporate workers logging back on the first Monday of the year. After weeks of late nights of holiday fun, overindulgence, friends and family time and a slower pace of life, the abrupt shift back to the corporate grind can trigger feelings of anxiety in even the most enthusiastic of employees. Monday 5th January isnt for the weak, another TikTok user wrote in the caption of a clip. The idea of an unwanted convo at 9am on Monday 5th, the closed captions reads, soundtracked to frantic voiceovers sputtering workplace jargon, including KPIs, decks, emails, and Salesforce. If this week so far youve felt unusually slow, unfocused, or overwhelmed, youre likely experiencing what is commonly referred to as the holiday hangover, or January blues. These feelings are not unique to one generation or another, and tend to resurface like clockwork come January each year. As another TikTok user wrote: The way I logged on after two weeks off only to realise i can barely remember what i was doing when I left or what im supposed to be doing now so im lowkey terrified and every email and teams alert feels like a jack-in-the-box. Relatable. While time off work over the holidays has been linked to reduced stress and overall improved health, these benefits tend to vanish relatively quickly once back to work. And research has shown when workers are expected to hit the ground running after a break, they often experience depleted energy, focus and motivation. Reestablishing some semblance of routine post-holidays is essential for keeping the January blues to a minimum. This means fixing sleep schedules after going to bed consistently after midnight and waking up at midday for the past few weeks. Giving up the chocolate and leftovers from the fridge diet and going back to overnight oats and desk salads. And not only having to remember what day of the week it is, but also spending the next few months mistakenly writing 2025, crossing it out, and rewriting 2026. The key is to keep expectations low. If you simply showed up, caught up on the post-holiday small talk with colleagues, and made it to 5 p.m.? Honestlythat’s enough for this week.
Category:
E-Commerce
American Airlines will begin offering free, high-speed Wi-Fi on flights beginning this month. The airline made the announcement this week in a press release, explaining that the service will extend to around two million flights in 2026. However, not all fliers will receive the perk. The new service will be sponsored by wireless provider AT&T. Free high-speed Wi-Fi isnt just a perkits essential for todays travelers,” said Heather Garboden, chief customer officer at American Airlines, in the release. The rollout won’t kick off all at once, the announcement explained, but instead will happen in phases. This month, the service will be available only on “narrowbody and dual-class regional fleets,” the announcement says. But in just a few months, it will be made available on “nearly every American Airlines flight.” Who gets free, high-speed Wi-Fi? While the service will be available on almost all flights, it’s not for everyone. Eligible fliers have to be in the airline’s loyalty program, AAdvantage. If you aren’t a member but want to become one, you can sign up for a free account on the American Airlines website by providing a few personal details. Doing so will enable you to start earning miles, loyalty points, and free Wi-Fi on flights. How can AAdvantage members access free Wi-Fi on their flights? Accessing free Wi-Fi for AAdvantage members can be accomplished through the new and improved aainflight.com portal. Customers will be asked to log in using their AAdvantage membership number and password. Then, they can select Free Wi-Fi to start using the service. If you don’t have access to free Wi-Fi, it’s available on most American Airlines flights for $10. Who else offers free Wi-Fi? Not having to pay for Wi-Fi is certainly a desirable perk for fliers. However, American Airlines is not the first to offer it. Many U.S. airlines, like Delta, United, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, and Southwest, also ensure free Wi-Fi for loyalty members. However, JetBlue remains the only U.S. airline that offers free Wi-Fi to all travelers on most of its flightsa service it first rolled out in 2013. By January 2017, the service was extended to all flights. Wi-Fi for non-members costs around $8 to $10 on most carriers. But for longer, international flights, prices can go up to as much as $35. Frequent fliers, especially those who are traveling internationally often and want Wi-Fi access, can save money by purchasing monthly Wi-Fi passes on their preferred airline, rather than paying for the service on each and every flight.
Category:
E-Commerce
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