“What do you hate about performance appraisals?” I asked, gazing into a classroom full of rolling eyes. The snickers and muffled laughter hinted that I struck a chord.
Each table created responses that sounded like these:
- They are a waste of time.
- They are supposed to cover a whole year, but no one remembers anything earlier than three weeks ago.
- My manager hardly knows what I do, anyway.
- My manager is just trying to remember the bad stuff, so he doesn’t have to give me a raise.
- The only score I ever get is a 3 out of 5, because any other score requires an explanation, and no one wants to spend the time on the paperwork.
- My manager is out of touch with the problems I face on a daily basis, and he uses some sort of rating system that doesn’t make any sense.
- Sometimes, I think my manager is wrong about the way he sees things.
If you are a regular reader of Dilbert, you can come up with another hundred observations. The reason they are funny is that they most accurately describe the truth.
So, if we were to create an appraisal system that addresses these issues, what elements would we include? -TF
Something that the employees had buyin and thought was important to them.
Rather than calling it a performance appraisal, why not call it a Personal Planning Session? I have found that staff members are very interested in helping to plan their future. Whenever you plan the future, you have to look at the past and decide what skills sets have been providing the greatest results and which ones could be or should be improved. Asking a staff member to get involved deciding what are their strengths, successess, weaknesses, failures, and opportunities for the future gets them invested in the Personal Planning Session (Performance Appraisal). Performance Appraisals only measure what has happened in the past. Planning Sessions measure what has been happening and lays the framework for improvement.
Great question, Tom, and one that I have thought a lot about. In fact, I wrote a book called “Catalytic Coaching: The End of the Performance Review” that focuses on that problem and describes an alternative. I believe traditional performance evaluations are broken and can’t be fixed. They’re rotten at the core of the paradigm.
During my 17 years as an HR professional leader for large companies (like Exxon, Shell, and Phelps Dodge)I became so unhappy with traditional performance evaluations that I could no longer require managers to use them. In two of my incarnations I held executive level positions that allowed me control over the HR systems. In keeping with the ideas suggested by Mr. Roepnack in the comment above, our coaching system focuses on the future instead of the past. It is designed to obtain five outcomes:
– Change Behavior
– Increase Motivation
– Decrease Turnover
– Increase Promotions
– Minimize Legal Exposure
The system employs no labels or grades, nor does it attempt to justify this year’s three percent salary adjustment with last year’s performance. It is conducted using three pieces of paper and four short meetings. And it’s being used successfully in hundreds of companies across the US and Canada.
Anyway, those interested can check out my book and some free videos on our website at http://www.energage.com.
Garold and David,
Thank you very much for your insight in this area. This was all prompted by a reader question on Monday, but it is an area of great concern for most of my readers. Your suggestions should be very helpful.
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