Performance Reviews: Just Like A Drive-By Shooting?
Professor Gary Martin FAIM
Chief Executive Officer, AIM WA | Emeritus Professor | Social Trends | Workplace Strategist | Workplace Trend Spotter | Columnist | Director| LinkedIn Top Voice 2018 | Speaker | Content Creator
My Post relating to Iggy Tan’s book Ban the Performance Appraisal generated some interesting comments so I decided to add a few more thoughts on the topic in a new post.
The annual performance review has been a loathed fixture of organisations for decades.
Why are some organisations now deciding to ditch the practice of the annual performance review? What's the alternative?
Performance Reviews Do Not Necessarily Enhance Performance
I recently read an article in which Alec Bashinksy, head of people and performance at Deloitte in Australia likened annual performance reviews to drive-by shooting – you just never know when you’re going to get hit.
In referring to the performance review system which Deloitte discarded, Baschinsky told Business Insider (Australia) that:
The old system used to be compared to a drive-by shooting, with not being sure what the managers want, not being clear around the objective and then waiting six months to know whether you have or haven’t performed.
If you ask any employee about performance reviews they immediately go the into negative and shrug their shoulders.
In my view, all organisations need to look at how they develop and lead talent. Performance management is an old, outdated system.
The reality is that performance reviews can often end up as a source of employee anxiety, frustration and annoyance.
So while annual performance reviews are designed to enhance performance they frequently have the opposite effect.
Are They Really Objective?
Quite often performance reviews are often considered to be an objective look at one’s performance.
But consider what Samuel Culbert had to say in the Wall Street Journal some time back.
Most performance reviews are staged as "objective" commentary, as if any two supervisors would reach the same conclusions about the merits and faults of the subordinate.
But consider the well-observed fact that when people switch bosses, they often receive sharply different evaluations from the new bosses to whom they now report.
To me, this is just further proof that claiming an evaluation can be "objective" is preposterous, as if any assessment is independent of that evaluator's motives in the moment.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122426318874844933
So the question here is: Just how reliable are performance reviews?
What About the Cost?
Last year, multinational management consulting firm Accenture ditched performance reviews.
In HC Online in 2015 it was reported that:
Accenture sees annual appraisals as an excessive use of time, money and effort, and is one of the few businesses moving away from them.
https://www.hcamag.com/hr-news/why-accenture-is-ditching-performance-reviews-203052.aspx
Staff time, lost business opportunities, support by Human Resources professionals and data analyse all add to the cost. Is there really a good return on investment?
Yet Another Perspective
Dr Shaun Ridley, a colleague of mine at AIM WA wrote a piece on the performance review some time ago. This is what he had to say:
Here is the most compelling argument against the annual review.
If it is such a good idea, why don’t we use it with our children, our friends and our partners?
The answer, of course, is we would destroy the relationships with the people we care about most.
Sitting our children down once a year, discussing their weaknesses, their achievements and their targets for the next 12 months would be a very risky practice.
Why then would managers and leaders think this approach will work with their staff?
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/16357056/rip-the-annual-performance-appraisal/
Dr Ridley adds to the debate by claiming that the performance review is not a natural process.
An Alternative: The Boss Needs Skin in The Game
Let me return to the write of Samuel Culbert in The Wall Street Journal.
He says a performance review should be a performance preview in which the boss as “skin in the game”
The Promise:
Performance reviews are supposed to provide an objective evaluation that helps determine pay and lets employees know where they can do better.
The Problems:
That's not most people's experience with performance reviews. Inevitably reviews are political and subjective, and create schisms in boss-employee relationships. The link between pay and performance is tenuous at best. And the notion of objectivity is absurd; people who switch jobs often get much different evaluations from their new bosses.
The Solution:
Performance previews instead of reviews. In contrast to one-side-accountable reviews, performance previews are reciprocally accountable discussions about how boss and employee are going to work together even more effectively than they did in the past. Previews weld fates together. The boss's skin is now in the game.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122426318874844933
Perhaps I have taken a hard line on performance reviews. Please let me know what your thoughts are.
Automotive Functional Safety & Quality Manager, Process Owner, FS Assessor & inTACS Certified ASPICE Provisional Assessor
8 年Rachel Green-EI (AFAIM, MAHRI, CSP) I agree and I am facing the same. Almost cried.
Driving community change, one conversation at a time
8 年Great perspectives, especially sitting down with family members. Managers often so dislike performance evaluations that they put them off completing them. Not only does that undermine the process, it demonstrates the process does not work. Time for a new approach.