Bosses' boss invited to my annual appraisal meeting

motorguy

Appraisals shoudnt be a surprise anyway - its a poor manager / company that does bi yearly appraisals then doesnt interact with the individual during the rest of the year to give feedback / direction.

If your manager sits down with you at an appraisal and says "you've done a crap job this past 6 months" then i'd be asking questions as to why you werent told at the time....

TELLIT01

motorguy wrote: »

Appraisals shoudnt be a surprise anyway - its a poor manager / company that does bi yearly appraisals then doesnt interact with the individual during the rest of the year to give feedback / direction.

If your manager sits down with you at an appraisal and says "you've done a crap job this past 6 months" then i'd be asking questions as to why you werent told at the time....

Exactly that. If any surprises regarding performance are raised then it's the manager who has been doing a poor job, not the person being managed. I would most certainly make that point it that did happen.
Some years ago I was one of 9 team leaders managing IT support teams for a large organisation. At one of our regular team leader meetings, one of the others stated that they only ever discussed performanace with staff at their quarterly appraisals. He really didn't understand when the rest of us questioned that he felt it was acceptable to allow poor performance to continue for up to 3 months with taking action.

Ja7188

Personally I wouldn't send e-mails asking why the more senior guy is going to be there - how is that going to impact on what you do in the meeting?

Suggest you very much see it as a positive and an opportunity to engage with someone a little further up the tree, which should do you no harm at all...!

xapprenticex

Is not about you, he/she is observing your line manager. The pressure will be on them to get it right.

slapmatt

Take this as a huge opportunity to boost your profile in the eyes of your bosses' boss.

Fireflyaway

My guess is your bosses boss is observing your boss as part of his / her own performance monitoring. Or there might be a new role being created or a promotion up for grabs? It shouldn't be anything bad. As others have said, bad news should have been highlighted prior to a formal review and if it were really had, it's good practice to remind you, you are entitled to have a person of your choosing accompany you to the meeting and you don't mention that happening.

redpete

If you can't ask your boss (not by email) why his oss is attending it suggests you don't have a good relationship with your boss.