isn't your manager supposed to review focal with you before it's submitted?

Not exactly a lay off question, but it could well turn into one....

Anyway, talking to a friend in another org. Very smart dude. (No it's not me, I am not smart. ) The Dude is not a political player or adept at reading tea leaves - too busy w/ work and life. The Dude has been at Intel 10+ years, promotions and SSL2s in recent years so you'd think he'd be as safe as anybody.

(You know where this is going.)

The Dude was given new manager he just didn't (doesn't) click with. Lots of fights. The Dude tries to switch to a different manager under same skip-level manager. Skip-level manager refuses to approve The Dude changing to a new manager (apparently there is some rivalry between managers in this group and The Dude moving would be an escalation in the local manager war). Skip-level starts viewing The Dude as a troublemaker and hostile vibes start coming off Skip. The Dude decides to abide until after focal to switch organizations entirely if need be.

Focal time rolls around... January goes by.

The Dude's like "when are we going to meet and discuss my focal submission? here's what I wrote for my bragsheet" The Dude's manager is like "I already submitted it. It's all the same stuff you said." The Dude is like "should I expect a good review or bad review?" and manager is like "I can't talk about that".

The impression that I got from this is the first and skip are setting up The Dude for a bad review and possible exit from the company... (why exactly, I don't know... maybe they fear they will have to ax somebody so it might as well be somebody they don't like rather than letting The Dude go to team where he could do work).

The Question: Isn't it required that the manager and The Dude meet to discuss the content of the focal review before it is submitted, that they have a "pre-focal discussion" or whatever HR says? Every Intel manager I ever had from the best to the worst did that. And if it is required, what do you do if the manager refused to have any kind of pre-focal discussion?

(I guess "it's all the same stuff you said" might be construed as a minimal pre-focal discussion but given everything else I wouldn't take much assurance from it)

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The new Intel: you're only ever one Satisfactory rating away from being immediately walked out of the building, labeled a poor performer and banned from the company for life.

If you got an S/SL4 more than likely your manager didn't have evidence of actual poor performance so the last thing that he wants to do is actually discuss things with you.

GPTW

@-nii. SSL4 was used as an ISP criterion in both 2015 and 2016.

I've sense moved on to better places, but isn't there still a place where you have to go into the tool and "accept" the review you got? I would think "WTF is this, you never talked to me about it and X is materially different than the Y I provided" would be a comment HR would have to look into...

of course at that point you better have your new managment chain picked out and your transfer in process.

My manager didn't review mine with me, but that's good, less work for me, no revisions to submit etc..

Related to this topic, this year is the first year in probably about 15 years I haven't been asked to give feedback about my manager (like MFT/LFT) was it cancelled this year?

Clearly, your dude is lack of skill needed in Intel today. Low performer, he should get SSL4/5.

Yes, the manager is supposed to have a pre-Focal discussion with their team members, but it is not required. After all, a lot of managers don't do it.

If the employee is at risk of getting IR/SSL5 in Focal, then the manager needs to give a pre-warning and do a CAP. SSL4 can be given without a pre-warning. After all, SSL4 does not usually lead to an ISP (unlike what all the people in their little fantasy world here think).

Would it really matter if the manager actually met with The Dude before giving him an unwarranted S/SL4 or other review?

It's not as if anything you can do or say is going to convince a manager who wants to justify that you are an S and also deserve lower stock allocation. "You were late for a meeting back in October. I need to you to improve your attention to detail." Done and done.

The real issue is that this kind of rating system is antithetical to a culture that results in motivated, creative, focused people.

Document everything. Open door it

If they want you gone, no discussions. Start

looking for a new job.

Nice fairy tale, pathetic brah

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isn't your manager supposed to review focal with you before it's submitted?

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