Bank performance review
Hi all,
Looking for some perspective because I’m feeling really deflated right now.
I work in a bank in Cork , Ireland and recently had my annual performance review. For context, I’m office-based and I’ve been with the bank the longest in my team. Over the past year, I had the highest lending return in the office, and the standard of my applications is consistently high — thorough, compliant, and often well beyond what’s required.
Despite this, for the second year in a row, I received a below-average performance rating.
We have colleagues who transferred in from another institution around 2+ years ago. They’re genuinely good people and good at their jobs — no issue there — but it’s becoming hard not to feel like they’re being rewarded or favoured because of where they came from, while I’m at the blunt end of the tougher reviews.
What’s really getting to me is that I don’t know what more I’m supposed to do. The feedback feels vague, the rating doesn’t align with the actual output, and there’s no clear explanation as to why strong results don’t seem to matter.
At this point, I feel disappointed, overlooked, and honestly a bit hopeless. I’ve put in the years, stayed loyal, and delivered consistently — yet it doesn’t seem to count for much.
Has anyone been in a similar position?
Is this a sign that I’ve hit a ceiling here?
Should I be pushing back harder on the review?
Or is it time to accept that effort and results won’t be recognised and start looking elsewhere?
Any advice or perspective would be really appreciated.
Did you have any warning throughout the year that you were performing below expectations? A poor performance review should never be a surprise.
Do you have regular 1:1s with your manager where your performance is discussed?
Did you have clear goals/targets that you missed?
Was your performance review adequately documented?
If the answers to the above are no then…
I would write an email to your manager expressing your disappointment and request that your review be documented so you can clearly understand your shortcomings where you missed targets/goal and work towards improving. Do not accept a meeting instead.
Also ask for clearly defined goals and at minimum monthly 1:1s for the coming year so your progress can be documented.
The reality is that you’re probably fine at your job but someone has to be picked to be the poor performer and your manager doesn’t like you for whatever reason so you’re it.
Final advice, look for a new job. Best of luck
This is great advice. A good manager will pick up the issues there and then. No one should be surprised going into an annual performance review. OP should also get his union involved. Probably Financial Services Union. Also ask for specific incidents..let your line manager earn his money
What do you think the actual outcome of telling your manager to document things and getting a union involved is? Ruth Coppinger will post an instagram story while the OP posts 'how to claim dole'.
Theyre whinging about a performance review, not apartheid.
You go Hun ....🤞
Bitch, dont make me take my earring out.
😂
Took me a second 😂
'Hold me hoops'
Been there too long to be made redundant. Too good at the basics to be fired. So classic 'managing out' tactics are deployed.
OP dont leave. Do work to rule. You're likely useless at other comparable jobs but n this one you have some legal protection from being sacked
Wouldnt look for another job as youre trading security for your interpretation of what 'good' looks like
If the feedback is vague then possibly you are just suffering from curve grading and you’re doing a bad job on your personal submission and your manager doesn’t like you enough to coach you and defend you thru moderation
If you plan to stay you need to ask for coaching NOW and regular meetings no less than bi-monthly to review if you are on track to exceed expectations or if there are issues you can address before year end. Proactively tackling whatever it is they think is weak is what you need to get ahead of
Curve grading and budget for bonuses is the answer here. OP seems like a soft mark: doing their BAU well but not 'well liked' and moving the needle in a meaningful way
What is bi-monthly meant to mean now? I don't know why we stopped using fortnightly, as an aside, potentially.
I always use it to mean every two months and fortnightly for every two weeks but I accept it’s not the clearest
I know exactly how you feel and the only outcome of it all is making us feel like shit. Can’t do enough for them. I’ll be gone the second a decent offer presents itself. Hope you do the same
I work in banking and this is really strange to me! I can’t understand how you would have the best performance in the office and yet get a below average rating. Generally most people “meet expectations” with a few above and a few below. Those below they generally want to get rid of and those above they want to promote.
Honestly at this stage I’d definitely leave! Cork is poor for employment opportunities in banking though.
You could ask to discuss the review outcome and give your reasons why you feel you deserve a higher rating. But if they’re already treating you in a way you know is unfair and you also have the longest service on the team, they probably won’t change. So you have to make a change.
I had a similar very unfair issue with an employer of 15+ years across multiple roles. And it wore me down, felt so deflated and unappreciated. I’m not someone that can do this quiet quitting while I look for another job unfortunately, so I just left and thought to hell with them. I wouldn’t recommend doing that before finding a new job 😅.
And you’re bound to get a better salary/comp package by changing roles and company’s.
Best of luck to you.
Performance reviews are a load of wank tbh. I got an email from senior management stating that one person to exceed expectations and 2 had to be below average.
Now in the self assessment part, 6 put themselves down as exceeding and the rest as meeting.
Going to be some heap of bollocks next week when having the meetings.
I will however give them all this advice.
If you feel it's unfair, contact the union rep.
I work in banking and I have an idea why you're getting bad reviews as the longest serving member of the team - but I have to ask what you mean by "they’re being rewarded or favoured because of where they came from"?
The em-dashes make this post a bit suspect too, in my opinion
Go on tell us!
Cmon Package, spit it out for goodness sake!
In the absence of KPIs actually feeding into a comparable score between team members, its performance tool.
As a manager you cant give everyone 5's. Rating also affects bonus, so it can be a retention tool. You're left with a decision and a budget.
The new guys have demonstrated that they will jump ship so at a minimum you have to give them a 3 out 5. Bonus correlated. They stay for another year and you don't need to hire and train new people.
Who loses? The person that has demonstrated resillence or loyalty. You can 'ding' this person without any real downside.
There's variations of this where small % salary increases have compounded and resulted in a 'lifer' being paid more than the CEO. Typically, your rating and your bonus is a management activity and not tied to performance - assuming an absence of overall KPIs feeding into the a homogenious scoring system
And say OP wanted proper dialogue from their manager, similar to what have written above, how would they go about getting that?
Setting up regular 121s and understanding where the teams priorities are.
Im sure the OP is really good at pushing the red buttom at 11am and then pushing the green button at 2pm - but just doing your BAU isnt enough.
The caustic reference to new employees is very telling.
And would a good manager sit down and speak with someone like OP to discuss their priorities solely and tell them how they can hit their numbers? Say show them what great looks like and break it down for them on how to get great scores like their colleagues?
Apparently they have great scores, according to the OP.
See my poat above, the team member is good at their BAU and is comfortable doing it. Its terribly American to try get more from them. The onus is and should be on the person to work out how to grow.
Not everyone is a senior manager and not everyone wants to be. I answered the OP and your question. Not really arsed havung an argument about a performance review that has any relevance to neither of us
All fair points. Sorry if I came across as argumentative, but just trying to help OP out here as may be their manager that is the problem, and not them. I'm sure OP can go back to their manager an query some things based on your advice.
Its all cool. Apologies if my tone seemed abrasive, i'm not like that
I'm too curious, what's the reason?
Yes would love to hear the reason
They are managing you out.
It looks like your post is about work! If you're looking for legal advice/advice about something that could be a legal issue we highly recommend also posting/crossposting to r/LegalAdviceIreland.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
With AI and the offshoring of work coming in hard, in the next 5 years at least - workplaces have to find ways to get rid of staff - reduce costs - how?
Reduce bonuses, or cancel them all together - back to office/ no more work from home - great examples of this. Another one - by giving staff lower PR's, so when it suits the business, HR will have an excuse to get rid of them.
They will do so, more likely with staff that has been in the job for a longer time - because they are more expensive than someone they hired 2 years ago (old contracts vs new contracts)
Especially in a bank - the purpose of a bank as an institution - is to make money.
Sounds like you are being affected by the ancient HR practice of insisting that performance is calibrated to a bell curve - it’s a fairly simple, yet flawed logic that for every rating that moves right of the mid point on the curve someone moves left. Scores are then calibrated in a popularity contest where nebulous and vacuous statements are made to justify moving someone up, just as they get used to move someone down.
You should have a right to appeal - I would anchor that appeal to a statement something like, at no time during the reporting period was it indicated or implied that my performance was falling below the level required to be fully effective. Demand an explanation with evidences for the given rating, robustly challenge the areas which are being used to bring your score down.
A lot of times you mightn’t actually be doing anything wrong and it can simply come down to whether or not your boss likes you.
That being said you’re likely doing something small which your boss just finds annoying and they’re punishing you disproportionately so apply whatever feedback they give as best as possible and keep your head down. Maybe see other peoples work and/ or your bosses work and model it off of that
Pushing back on the review is unlikely to do much for you tbh. My advice is to look for a better gig and bounce if it’s genuinely just a personality clash with your boss but work through it until something better comes up
Have a 1:1 with you manager. Be positive and say your goal is to get a high performance rating next year and you want to know exactly what steps, milestones and in general what High performance looks like.