I used to work at a company that had about 6000 employees at the one facility. (7 days a week, 3 shifts, 1,000,000 sqft.

The one thing I thought was interesting was that 20% of you evaluation was peer feedback. You were allowed to pick any 10 colleagues (out of the 6000) who you thought would give you a good rating. ANY 10. If you had 10 chums who you went out to lunch with every day - you could pick them. But ... their appraisals would be kept 100% confidential - and you'd never be able to trace it back to them.

You'd think it'd be easy - a free 20%. You'd be wrong. With the freedom of anonymity, your chums would always write what they "really" thought.

For 2-3 years, I was in the seat of El-Jefe. It shocked me to read some of these feedbacks. I wish AI had written some of them. The pent up aggression was crazy. - Much of the feedback wasn't professional at all.

Arguably, if you picked the 10 folks that you worked with daily who you disliked the most, they'd give you a better review than the 10 who you thought you were chums with. They'd have nothing to say about your personality - they'd only describe your work.

Back then... the reviews were pretty important as one year (before the dot-com bubble burst). A glowing review was worth a bonus greater than 50% of your annual salary!!!.

Currently, the delta on our bonus between stellar and dismal is roughly 3 days pay. So ... not really something worth fighting over.