Handshake reviews

- general disorganization and shifting priorities leading to wasted efforts and confusion - people disappearing left and right - hazy vision - the accuracy of review metrics is questionable at best and downright dishonest at worst. This isn't a dig at direct reports, but more at the overall review culture and goals. I think many people outside of HR kind of have their hands tied in this system. For your first review at 6 months, HR has instructed that all employees should be expected to "meet expectations" regardless of their performance or responsibilities and how those responsibilities relate to their original job description. If you exceeded expectations within that time, that would mean they overhired... and nobody wants that, right? So just don't record that it's happening and all the metrics and numbers line up, problem solved. Look at the last review cycle around mid-late Jan and you'll find a number of reviews with a similar sentiment, there seems to be little confidence in the accuracy of performance reviews.

Upper leadership's ability to lead and inspire is minimal. Upper leadership has made several top-down decisions recently with what seems like little thought as to how the people impacted by their decisions will be affected. Then when leadership gets negative feedback on their decisions, they seem to act surprised like they hadn't considered that decision might not be popular. Furthermore, there seems to be no accountability for upper leadership. The effectiveness of upper leadership's decisions and initiatives are not tracked anywhere visibly, and if their decision has a negative impact there appear to be no consequences. In short it often feels like leadership doesn't know how to lead and they are figuring it out as they go. Leadership’s recent attempt to change Handshake's culture seems like a massive misstep. Leadership did not provide much detail for what they wanted the new culture to be except for "performance" and they did not describe what it was about the old culture they were trying to improve.