The Performance Appraisal is Alive and Well

by HEATHER MCCULLIGH | Nov 12th, 2008 | Performance Management |

Over the past couple weeks HR bloggers have all been weighing in on an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal – Get Rid of The Performance Review. You can check out posts from other HR bloggers on this topic to get some additional commentary – Jim Holincheck and Jessica Lee provide a good response to a lot of the issues raised by Culbert.

The article is by Dr. Samuel Culbert from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and he’s definitely managed to spark some discussion, while securing himself some great PR in the process with an article, podcast, and video all posted to the Wall Street Journal site!

In a nutshell, Culbert asserts that employee performance reviews destroy morale, kill teamwork and hurt the bottom line. Definitely provocative stuff, which on the whole I disagree with. We work with customers on a daily basis, and based on those experiences I have a hard time stomaching Culbert’s statement. He is seriously out of touch with how a lot of companies are doing appraisals nowadays, as they are a far cry from the one-sided, boss driven events he talks about. Do we know how many organizations are still doing these one-sided reviews and how many have moved into the 21st century? Clearly, we can’t measure that, but based on the growth of the talent management market alone over the past two to three years, it’s safe to say that hundreds of thousands of organizations have, and more are on their way. Such a sweeping generalization isn’t doing anything for HR professionals or communicating the real value talent management can bring to an organization.

In the article, Culbert makes multiple points about how reviews are flawed, from how they impede personal development to how they don’t determine pay. I could write a book detailing how this is simply not the case for organizations that have put processes in place to drive accountability, transparency and create a culture of performance. That said, Culbert does however, have a good suggestion in an effort to offer an alternative to appraisals – the performance preview. The concept is a solid one, basically a two-way conversation about how managers and employees are going to work together. Can the performance preview standalone? The simple answer is no.

However, the idea of the performance preview serves to drive home the idea that the overall employee performance management process needs to have clear goals and expectations (for both employee and manager) established from day one. Getting together at the end of the year to rehash things isn’t productive – coaching on a day-to-day basis is required to make employee performance management valuable. You can have all the appraisals you want, but they lose value without coaching from managers and even peers.

Should we get rid of the performance review? No way. It works for many organizations and drives outstanding results. The real question is how can we do it better, and how can we ensure the necessary coaching is happening for employees to succeed?

What did you think of Culbert’s article? Post your comments below.

  • Milan Moravec

    Rx for ‘alive and well’ performance appraisals.It’s amazing that such dinosaurs (performance review systems, not the people) are still around. They must be, however, since a book has been published called “Get Rid of Performance Reviews’. Yet despite the outcry against reviews, there’s nothing wrong with them that can’t be fixed by getting managers off of center stage. Top management can fix the basic problems the review system faces.
    Critics argue that performance reviews not only don’t accomplish what they’re supposed to do – that is, improve performance, enhance employee skills and achieve planned outcomes – they have unintended negative consequences. In many cases, unfortunately, that’s true. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What companies need to abolish is not performance review itself, but the idea that it’s a “management tool. Here are some practiced paradigms that must be discarded:
    Performance Review is designed, as the name suggests, in support of managers. If you believe this, your management is one of the roadblocks to exceptional performance. The most useful performance review support work relationships between employees (managers too are employees). Both parties need to address the question of how to best serve the goals and outcomes and align their work efforts.
    Performance review is a management tool. Managers are not necessarily the best qualified to assess their staff’s accomplishments. In fact, they may have a very limited or biased view. A more complete and accurate picture results when employees and managers seek feedback from a variety of customers, team leaders, professional peers, and others inside or from outside the unit.
    Performance reviews include judgments from a “higher authority”. Judgments produce compliant workers – people who are told what to do – not innovative ones. People hate performance reviews because most of them are fault-finding. How much better to ask, “What did we learn from this? What can we each do different the next time?”
    The manager is responsible for obtaining input from the employees. 21st century employees can’t assume a passive role in performance review, providing “tough-minded” self-assessments and valuable insights only on request. They must take the initiative, soliciting feedback from their managers and others. No risk taking to solicit the complete picture and no learning means no improvements.
    Managers should be trained in performance reviews, then prepare their employees for the process. If performance review is to be a productive partnership with employees taking the active role and both parties committed to exchanging knowledge and ideas, managers and employee need to be trained together.