> Do they also make you write your own performance review and set your own objectives?

Not to get off on a tangent but this has got to be a "tell" for how much a company is managed by formula and how much it's actually got thinking people running things. Every time I've had to write my own review I fill out the form with some corporatese bullshit, my supervisor approves it and adds some more bullshit, it disappears into HR and I never hear anything about it until it's time for the next review, and it starts over again. There isn't even reference to any of my "objectives" from the last review, because that review has simply disappeared.

But I'm sure some HR exec is checking boxes for following "best practices" in employee evaluation.

That’s exactly what we do at the Fortune 500 company where I work, and it’s surreal.

In my first year I didn’t know any better, so I tried to set myself some actual objectives (learn to use XYZ, improve test coverage by X%, measurable stuff that would actually help).

Fortunately my manager showed me how to do it correctly, so now my goals are to “differentiate with expertise” and to “empower through better solutions”.

Every year I open up the self-review, grade myself a 5/5 on these absurd, unmeasurable goals, my manager approves it, and it disappears off somewhere into the layers and layers of ever-higher management where nobody cares to look at it.