Performance Review are Time Consuming. There has to be Something Better

Does the thought of Performance Reviews change your best people into procrastinators, avoiders, and needing follow up? Has this once a year exercise become a several month project with lots of forms, involving everybody, and generally bring down a productive environment?
 
You have to ask yourself – why are we doing this?
 
Honestly, ask yourself why? What’s the purpose? Or is it – we have always done it? Once you have an answered the rest will be easier. You need to understand your goal for the review process first before you can ditch or replace it with something more suitable.
 
What is it about performance reviews that bring out the worst in people? It’s only done once a year and items are brought up that can’t be changed. For example, if a situation was mishandled in February, you discussed it and fixed it….what is the value in bringing it up again in December? The only thing you have accomplished is opening old wounds.
 
Once a year. Giving thorough feedback once a year. Think about this, once a year we sit down with our people and review the last 12 months. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Granted people can talk about the good all day long. What value is there is in bringing up the bad and ugly months after it happened and has been resolved? Typically the only thing it does is bring the person down.
 
Ratings. Doesn’t matter if its a number or words (exceeds expectations, etc.) this becomes the focus. Why did I get a 4 instead of 5 or why did I only meet expectations instead of exceed. The conversation is about the ratings not the work and isn’t much of a conversation.
 
Top-Down Approach. For decades managers have been telling employees what’s working and what’s not. Then we incorporated self-evaluations so employees could have a say yet the managers word was final. Then we had 360 evaluations where our peers could also provide feedback. Now it feels like everyone has a say in the employees review except the employee. We are treating our employees more like children than adults.
 
Find something that works for your culture, achieves your objective, and results in a move forward.
Not sure what this would look like for your organization. We are happy to help, reach out to [email protected] or 773.531.8199