Get rid of the performance review!
Posted on July 30, 2010 | Author: Samuel Culbert | View 355 | Comment : 14
As far as I’m concerned, there’s one certainty about performance reviews: they are a curse upon our workplaces. They allow bosses to intimidate, rather than manage. They hurt morale and prevent teamwork. And they ensure that honest communication doesn’t have a prayer in the office.
They do enormous damage —to bosses, to their subordinates, and to the companies they work for. But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way.
There’s an alternative that has the potential for achieving all the benefits that performance reviews allegedly achieve, but never will: holding people accountable for their actions, giving managers and employees the kind of feedback they need for improving their skills, and giving the company more of what it needs…
It is the performance preview, in which manager and employee act as a team. We have to replace the one-side-accountable, boss-administered/ subordinate-received performance review with a two-sided, reciprocally-accountable performance preview. We need a dialogue, not a monologue.
We have to move from the performance review, where bosses tell subordinates what they’re doing wrong and how to fix it, to the performance preview where the boss’ mission isn’t to find fault but to simply improve the company’s performance.
Imagine if both the subordinate and boss were charged with thinking more broadly about results, so they could adjust their goals along the way if they can convince the big boss that the old criteria no longer make sense.
Comment
Comments (14)
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Yes, thats the problem with any Performance Management System. It would be extremely difficult to design a PMS which can compeletely obviate these problems. However, despite all the inherent problems, one can still have a PMS which can meet the company's objectives, foster team spirit, reward individual merit and performance.
Even two sided appraisal will have pitfalls and as a result some companies have moved to 360 degrees appraisal.
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Posted by Col neerav bhatnagar,MANAGING DIRECTOR at DAKSH GLOBAL|04 Aug, 2010
- The correct process is called "Performance Management Process". There are 3 parts : Performance Planning, Performance Review and Performance Development . One without the other is meaningless. All 3 have to be open dialogue -based between the manager and the associate.
Now dealing with the Performance Review part, it needs to be an ongoing informal process with the use of "One minute positive feedback" , "Corrective Feedback", as well as "One minute Negative Feedback". The perodic Performance Review ( stock taking over a period of time) should be at least quarterly. This should be a formal dialogue based process the summary of which should ideally be recorded in writing. This should be accompanied by a specific Performance Development Planning session which should be experienced ...See More
Posted by Pandurang Narayanswamy , Director at HRguruUnlimited | 02 Aug, 2010
- Drawbacks with the review system, emphatically brought out, are OK. But the fault lies with the people who operate the system and not with the system itself. May be people are ill equipped or inadequately motivated to furnish objective assessments. The remedy lies elsewhere, - may be training or reward/ punishments and certainly not in dispensing the system. Operations or administration without appraisals is like driving your car without a speedometer. You never know where you land up! Appraisal/ review has come to stay. May be the form, content or context may vary.
Posted by VS PRASAD , Director (Admin)( Retired) at MES | 02 Aug, 2010
- Performance reviews cannot be a year-end exercise. It has to be continual. Feedback given at the right time would add more value than year-end criticism. When the manager/boss sees the employee struggling to achieve goals or making mistakes, it is imperative to take corrective measures immediately, which would not only build employee morale, but also, contribute towards team/people development. However, most organisations/bosses/subordinates look at performance reviews as year-end bargaining time for increments/bonuses. And this is where there is a conflict of interest, increasing costs via higher increments versus meeting with the employees' expectations. Subjective elements in the evaluation, favoritism, perceptions and biases make things even more difficult. Ongoing dialogues, ...See More
Posted by Hanif Kanjer , Dean at Rustomjee Business School | 01 Aug, 2010
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Well, it is really a very good topic taken by you. There is no doubt that the performance review are supposed to make sure that the employee's objectives are aligned with organization's objectives. Besides this it is also supposed to encourage and appreciate the good work and find out the area of improvement.
But , most of the time it is not used in its true spirit. It is used to settle the score or demoralize the person. There should be a mechanism to ensure that it is not misused to throw out or put down the people whom one does not like for non professional reasons. Sometimes the grading etc are also changed without subordinates' notice.
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Posted by Paresh Srivastav,CEO at Vwin Enterprises|31 Jul, 2010
- Performance reviews are more and more becoming a subjective tool either to increae morale of an individual or demoralise a person who is jenuinely good at work but not in line with his boss. It all depends on your bosses perspective rather than looking at organiczational benefit for value addition. Many a times it is seen as a job to be completed at an interval and not much efforts are put in to use this effective tool as a win win situation for both the parties namely the performer and the organization itself. I have seen the case wherein the career of a prospective candidate has been ruined by the inept use of this tool ,besides organization losing a potential candidate in the long run.
Posted by Chandrakant Pendse | 31 Jul, 2010
- Perofrmance Appraisal System depends more upon the human or rather in human aspect. It as such cannot be scientific. The success of the system depends upon on so many ifs and buts which are beyond the control. The human perception is quite often misleading. Even if one is perfect it is impossible to assess the performance of an individual fairly. In many cases the performance is outcome of more than one individuals. Besides there is nothing remarkable an individual can do in the present system. In most of the cases the work is more or less clerical in nature. Nobody does anything new or innovative. Then how to assess the person? What is the necssity of assessment when the work can be done by anybody? Let the seniority decide. It may demoralise the outpoerformer. By by selecting one so ...See More
Posted by Purushothaman.R , Sr Mgr, at SAIL, RSP | 31 Jul, 2010
- I beg to differ. May be author's personal view or opinion about the PMS.
It all depends upon boss or subordinate how they take it. one can not generalise the perception rejecting the relevance of an instrument. In every instrument or tool, you can always find faults but should not ignore the strengths and benefits also.PMS has also its own benefits and strengths. Rather it can be used as scientific system to have a check and balance on bosses also.
anil kaushik, chief editor, Business Manager-HR magazine,Alwar
Posted by anil kaushik,Owner, Chief Editor at BUSINESS MANAGER-HR Magazine|31 Jul, 2010
- The confusion in the minds has to cease. There can not be performance without proper review. You would not be in the position where you are - unless someone had reviewed your performance and put you there. Only the method, form or content can vary. More prudent, perhaps, is to think and act in terms of a PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (PMS). Drawing from Connock (1991) and Storey and Sisson (1993) it can be stated: increased competitive pressures which put an emphasis on performance improvement; attempts to achieve a clearer correlation between organizational goals and individual targets; restructuring and devolution which have put a primacy on delegating tasks and responsibilities down organizational hierarchies ; the shift from collectivism to individualism during last decades, which ...See More
Posted by V.S. PRASAD , Dir (Admin) (Retd) at MES | 30 Jul, 2010
- Fairness is the key word for performance review...which often disappears at the time review.
Posted by Abhishek Kauhsik,Manager at North Delhi Power Limited|30 Jul, 2010
- Performance appraisal system is the out come of our most rotten system of modern management taught iin allpremier insittutes. At its best as well as worst it creates rat race and thus most of the energy of the employee is gone. Real talent will be relegated to the background and everything else comes to the foreground.. To prevent it, not only the entire system is to overhauled it also should be thrown out enmasse and destroyed. In the system of management we are still in the most primitive form. It is equaivalent to the life of savage in the wild forest. There he beleived fire water etc as god and started worhipping them as invincible. But now it is very difficult to destroy the well developed rotten system of management.. If you do so the number of management institures will lose their ...See More
Posted by R.PURUSHOTHAMAN , Sr Mgr at SAIL: RSP | 30 Jul, 2010
- Performance review was conceived with an idea of recognizing 'consistent high performers' and rewarding them in an objective environment. But unfortunately it has turned out to be an annual ritual without much significance, especially in years when either the economy or the organization has not done too well! Also it is skewed towards the Boss's opinion rather than employees actual reasoning as why they performed well or did not perform up to their potential. HR professionals need to get the 360 degree feedback as a mandatory tool in performance review and give it a fair weightage - so that objective decisions are arrived at.
Posted by shankar raghavan,Head - Sales Training at Virgin Mobile India|30 Jul, 2010
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There is the joke of an idling deskman being asked by his boss why he was not working and he replies that he did not see the boss coming.
Bosses are human and have come up through the system where the rest are now toiling - if not in that company, some other company. Very few are born to occupy a bosses chair by heredity or otherwise. With that background, he has his ideas and views of what makes each of his subordinates tick, who contributes positively without supervision etc.
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Posted by Brigadier Prabir Goswami,Brig at Retired|30 Jul, 2010
- There is no problem if Ratee and Reporting Officer have moral courage to face and accept good points and drawbacks of each other. But the problem starts when one of them or both of them want to get more than he desrves. Iron need to be heated up and hammered for giving fine shape and add value to the iron piece. But if iron piece wants added value without hammering or hammer wants to hit without consideration of value addition to iron piece, things go wrong and exposes a dirty shape/face of both. Muck slinging starts immediately. We can really do away from performance review but more openness in our day to day business. And desire only what you deserve.
Posted by Vinod Trivedi,Director at GETRI (Gujarat Energy Training & Research Institute, vadodara|30 Jul, 2010
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