For the past teo days I have had many meetings with the people I manage. It's the time of the year for annual salary reviews. Well, actually it's a bit late for that already, but we were a bit behind the schedule this year. For the past month I have been mostly occupied by going through all, evaluating their performance, growth and feedback they have received from others. With 66 people under my supervision it's not a small task.
In these meetings I have been going through the results with them and breaking them the news, some good, some bad (or neutral if they weren't even expecting a raise). Telling the good news is always great, but I don't really look forward for those other kind. Sadly there weren't that many good news to tell, the times are still hard and we need to be careful increasing our expenses. Luckily many are team players and understand this. There aren't that many good options elsewhere either.
Most of the people take good news with joy and gratefulness, but there were some that were disappointed, the offered raise not meeting their hopes and expectations. There were also nice surprises among those who didn't get a raise this time even though they had been hoping for one, some had even been asking after them. They understood the situation and were just happy that at least I made the effort telling them personally and explaining the situation.