I talked with a physical therapist who once worked for a VA hospital. He said at the time, employees received evaluations. However, bad evaluations were routinely upgraded when an employee complained. Once, when a female employee got a bad evaluation, a Union Rep flew in from Washington D.C. and got in the face of the hospital administrator. Eventually, the hospital simply stopped evaluating the employees.
Starting a few years ago, our evaluations of our staff have to be reviewed by senior staff before the employees ever see them. On the other hand, we’ve been told not to be overly kind in the evaluations, either; it makes it difficult to make the case that someone is unable to do their job if they’ve got 10 years of glowing evaluations. I’ve actually been told to include an employee’s poor attendance in an evaluation that I didn’t think was critical; they were paid very little, so you couldn’t expect super habits for that money.