Thread: Why don't we enjoy doing Performance Appraisals?

Despite the fact that Performance Appraisal is almost universally accepted as a good idea most of us do not enjoy the process, why is that?

A lot of the reasons lie in the way the process is designed and carried out. As with most things in life the more effort you put into something that matters, the more you get out!

So what are the most common complaints heard about Performance Appraisal, and what can be done about it?

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1. Most of us (managers) do not like discussing performance with individuals face to face - particularly with "average" performers
2. Most of us (managers) classify staff as poor, average, good, we do not have multiple gradations within average.
3. We (HR) invent gradations and labels that are not in normal usage then define what we mean by them, compounding managers discomfort with having the discussion. How many definitions have we seen of what we mean by the (changing) gradations of performance. How many debates about wether to have an odd/even number of performance levels etc.
4. How many ways have we designed to ensure that when one manager says that e person is performance level X they use the same criteria as another manager ( no one believes it including us).

What I would do:
1) Allow managers to use their own language to describe performance.
2) Have discussion groups (senior execs) to agree who they all believe are high performing and/or high potential.
3) Separate the HiPo/ High performing discussions
4) Observe where managers spend their salary budget to see what they really think (or identify bad managers)
5) Allow managers to have their performance discussions when it suits them and their staff not on an HR timetable.

Hi Nic, interesting notion... turn performance reviews on their heads...

You are right as a good managers they must know who is performing and who isnt performing, but each set of groupings need some kind of management intervention, i.e. poor performance needs to be addressed, and HiPo's need further encouragement and development, and probably included in a succession plan somewhere!

Do you think this principle would work in all sizes of organisations, large and small? In smaller organisations I find performance management is overlooked even more, as often it is a very close knit group of only 2 or 3 employees in a department.

I look forward to reading your response.