| ▲ | eru 6 days ago |
| > So, in the end, people just started giving the best possible feedback regardless of the team or manager performance. That seems to be the best possible strategy for any feedback you have to give as a captive audience? Reminds me of the feedback German companies are forced to give about their employees. It's like a formal letter of reference, but you can and will be sued if you you anything negative. Consequences are as you would expect. And because there has been an inflation in how complimentary these letters are, people started suing when their letter wasn't flowery enough, because that somehow could be read as an implicit criticism. (Just like how A is a bad mark, when everyone else gets A+.) |
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| ▲ | supriyo-biswas 6 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| > That seems to be the best possible strategy for any feedback you have to give as a captive audience? It is, but at that point why even have that bureaucratic process that achieves exactly nothing? Of course, I understand that being able to pat yourself on the back and concluding with statements like "Leadership is truly connected with its employees, keeping in touch every day through questions about improving the workplace. Our surveys show 99% of our employees are very satisfied with their team, their work, and work-life balance" is "valuable", I guess, I just feel very sad about humanity. |
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| ▲ | serial_dev 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > why even have that bureaucratic process that achieves exactly nothing? It is a very good question that you should never bring up as captive audience. | | |
| ▲ | baq 6 days ago | parent [-] | | If you have a back channel in the audience you should get a large enough group to ask this question in the free form feedback box in the exactly same wording. Should send chills down the lord of HR spine. Don’t do it with a group which isn’t large enough though, you’ll get you all fired for unionizing^W no reason. | | |
| ▲ | eru 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Again, there's no incentive to do this. It's full of downsides, and the only upside is some lolz from trolling. | | |
| ▲ | baq 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It all depends on what your utility function is, but for most people I completely agree. For a good example of such activism not blowing up completely in your face would be the OpenAI revolt and sama reinstatement, but that’s obviously survivorship bias. | |
| ▲ | Seattle3503 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | More like chewed out. I've been chewed out before. |
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| ▲ | eru 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > It is, but at that point why even have that bureaucratic process that achieves exactly nothing? Well, I was talking about the best strategy from the captive audience's point of view. You are now asking about the strategy for the captor. Going a bit beyond: getting honest feedback out of subordinates is a hard problem! Both formally and informally. That was always a big concern on my mind as a manager. |
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| ▲ | tpxl 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > And because there has been an inflation in how complimentary these letters are, people started suing when their letter wasn't flowery enough, because that somehow could be read as an implicit criticism. You got a source for this folktale? |
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| ▲ | mmarq 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The reality is that these letters are written in a kind of pseudolegalistic language, where a phrase like “the employee was punctual” means they were usually late. If they were actually punctual, you'd see something more like “the employee consistently demonstrated exceptional punctuality”. You usually need the reference letter to be reviewed by the works council or by an employment lawyer. | | |
| ▲ | johnisgood 6 days ago | parent [-] | | sighs. Seriously? Good to know though, if true. | | |
| ▲ | mafuy 6 days ago | parent [-] | | German here. Absolutely true, and has been for many years now. Some examples: - grade D, poor performance: "We were satisfied with his performance"
- grade C, meh: "We were entirely satisfied with his performance"
- true grade A+: "We were always satisfied to the utmost degree with his performance" plus highly positive and extensive in the rest of the reference letter. - "was sociable": alcoholic
- "was always striving for a good relationship with colleagues": was gossiping instead of working
- "sociability was appreciated": had sex with colleague
- "was very empathic": had sex with customer | | |
| ▲ | eru 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > - "was very empathic": had sex with customer This would be very funny to see on an Arbeitszeugnis for a prostitute. Remember prostitution is legal in Germany. | |
| ▲ | 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | etoulas 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I wonder why there is no LLM that can decode this. Tried many times but it seems the models don’t pick up the nuances. | | |
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| ▲ | larusso 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I have no official source but know that this happens a lot. Also the arguments with the employer about the letters afterwards. Some are so fed up and let you write the first or final draft.
There is also the hidden code. So instead of writing something negative which is forbidden you just use different words or leave out some intensifications. Like “zur größten Zufriedenheit” vs “zur allergrößten Zufriedenheit”. One means your work was Ok the other it was great. There is also intensification by adding time adjectives like “always” or “often” etc. This code is known by people in the HR and hiring departments.
It’s a very weird praxis. I have to explain this to my non German colleagues because for them even a mark F letter sounds awesome ;) | | |
| ▲ | eru 6 days ago | parent [-] | | My question would be: why even bother with any kind of code? What incentive is there for the employer to write anything truthful, to write anything but the blandest most positive things that really don't say anything hidden? | | |
| ▲ | larusso 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Replaying with a quote from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: “Whoever said the human race was logical?” |
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| ▲ | Hendrikto 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is a very common practice in Germany. There were a few court cases won by employees whose recommendation letters were not positive enough, so employers now basically just write whatever you ask for. I have written all my recommendation letters myself. The employers just put their letter head and sign it. | |
| ▲ | dahcryn 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | this is common practice in general no? People ask for references, or try to contact former bosses, when hiring critical profiles. Obviously nobody will say anything bad, so HR is trained, and giving trainings to the hiring managers, how to "grade" the level of positivity. There's a difference in saying "Yes I confirm person X worked here, he did a good job on all the tasks that we have asked him to do" vs "Yes, he was amazing at his job, he was proactive and really drove innovation, we are sad to see him leave" | | | |
| ▲ | eru 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can check out https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeitszeugnis with the help of Google Translate. |
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