What If We Killed The Performance Appraisal?

There is a reason why continuous discussions about performance don't take place: they require a LOT of effort.

First you need a clear set of goals for the team. What department has that these days? Priorities are constantly shifting, projects get started and cancelled, deadlines move. How can you determine where the goal is, if the goal line keeps moving?

Then you need a clear set of goals for the employee. But who sets those goals? The hiring manager? The team lead? The project manager of the multiple project teams that the employee belongs to?

The problem is that much emphasis has been placed on creating a fast-paced work environment, with teams of employees that come together to accomplish a project under a new team leader and then disband. Additionally, managers are told to 'empower' employees, delegating increasing amounts of responsibility to their subordinates, and then 'get out of the way' and let employees do their jobs.

With such a free-wheeling work environment, where managers don't manage, and employees do their own thing, is it any wonder that no one has the energy to organize everything and actually set goals and determine performance?

I totally agree with the weekly performance reviews! When I have a performance review, I have to sit through 3 pages of my boss talking...mostly of what I did right/wrong MONTHS ago! Like anyone, my mind is somewhere else. If they would shorten it up, I would be able to improve what I was doing incorrectly immediately! Plus, I believe management would have much happier and motivated employees! *I think I'll ask my boss to do this =)*

In my last job, my manager said, "Here are the goals we agreed on at the beginning of the year. Tell me how you met them, and anything you did in addition to them." Then she took my comments and used them as one of the inputs for the review.

Mind you, this was someone who gave feedback regularly, and was very open to being asked for feedback. That meant that any problems got caught and fixed early, and therefore weren't worth bringing up in the annual review.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the annual review. A year is a common and natural marker in the rhythm of life, and there's no reason not to use it in the workplace, too. However, lots of people DO annual reviews wrong. That's a training and procedural issue, though, and not an issue with the basic philosophy.

Chris,

I really like your philosophy and agree with it whole-heartedly. The annual review just doesn't make that much sense to either--especially with how business works these days. Everything is so instantaneous, so high-speed internet driven, the annual review just seems so archaic. I think we should be getting constant feedback from managers. The annual or bi-annual reviews should be a time for goal setting, but the feedback, that needs to be coming all the time.

@Chris The benefit is that my boss and I each get a year-long overview of how we see my performance--it isn't one-sided. As for things being instantaneous, well, that depends on the business.

Regular feedback is great, but it does not present a big picture. It's immediate, but narrow. Annual reviews provide perspective over time.

@Chris: Just to be clear, I agree with you on what needs to be done. I just think that often the amount of effort required is dismissed as "slightly more work". A manager with 50 employees is going to have a difficult time having 50 weekly performance reviews, especially when each employee is working on a half-dozen different tasks.

Instead, I think it needs to be clear that ongoing evaluations ARE time consuming, but they are worth it. They improve employee morale and performance. Not just because employees know their management cares about their work, but because employees have a clearer sense of what they should be focusing on, which makes for less stress and better performance.

@Chris That might be feasible if your manager's only job responsibility is giving feedback to subordinates. I have never worked for that manager.

And, frankly, I don't want to. That's a system practically guaranteed to devolve into micromanagement, which is a waste of everyone's time.

Ongoing feedback combined with an effective annual review is actually a pretty strong system. But neither I nor my manager has time for a formal weekly review. We're both too busy getting our jobs done.

You know what, though? I'm willing to delete the word "formal" and still stand by my statement.

And why is a month or a quarter different from a year? Answer: they're not, really, because all arbitrary demarcations that are based on external time measurements, not on the lifespan of a project or a corporate cycle (aside from the financial cycle).

It is less likely that a narrower time frame will include a wider perspective. If you do quarterly reviews, people are likely to look at that quarter, and maybe the one before. If you do monthly reviews, people will look at that month.

There's no reason not to do both. But you haven't really given a good reason for scrapping the annual review; your substitutes offer some potential improvements, but other losses. The balance is doing both. But none of them are worth doing if they're done poorly.

Which takes me back to my original point: their utility depends on whether they're taken seriously, particularly by management (why management? because they set the tone).

Again, it is--if it's done right. Nowhere have I said that the annual review should be the only checkpoint. Nowhere. I have said that different types of feedback have different purposes.

Constant feedback can also be done badly. The issue isn't when the feedback happens, so much as whether it's effective, targeted, and substantive.

The concept of the performance review isn't inherently flawed. It's actually quite sound. It's the execution that is often flawed--separate issue, and indicative of management problems on more than one level. But they are different issues.