Performance Appraisals - Why Bother?

I have not railed against performance appraisals in a long time, so I was interested to find this post from Management Issues called, Appraisals are a Waste of Time. Here is a snippet:

While four out of 10 employees who received appraisals thought they were a useful assessment of progress, very few had any faith in their manager taking action on what they had talked about.

I get lots of flack when I suggest that we abolish performance appraisals. But it is a system that is set up for failure in most cases. You can read more details about my views in these "classic" Management Craft Posts.

Scrap Performance Appraisals - Part 1
Scrap Performance Appraisals - Part 2
Scrap Performance Appraisals - Part 3
Scrap Performance Appraisals - Part 4
Scrap Performance Appraisals - Part 5

I am all for setting clear expectations, providing support and feedback, and holding people accountable. I just don't think that the performance appraisal is a tool that achieves it's goal most of the time and it is wickedly expensive. And when appraisal is tied to merit raises, the soup gets way too thick and murky.

Comments

[Wally Bock]

Performance appraisal is important. A boss should touch based frequently with the people who work for him/her and use those encounters as opportunities to coach, counsel, encourage and correct. Sitting down from time to time to talk about development and the future is a good thing. But the current "performance appraisal" system is a creaking, rotting, dysfunctional wreck. Everybody hates it. Pretty much everybody thinks it doesn't work. But we keep it anyway, because somebody once said it was a good idea and now it's enshrined in the policy manual.

[Mike DeWitt]

Lisa,

You and Wally are right on the money! One of my favorite things about David Maister's upcoming book is that he clearly tells professional service firm leaders what is wrong with the current system and how to fix it. Wally's point about "it's in the policy manual" hits the nail on the head. Not enough people have used it as a point for quitting to make it worth changing.

Mike

[gl hoffman]

Hello...I wrote about this very subject at What Would Dad http://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds/2007/12/04/100-attributes-of-successful-entrepreneurs-26-50/)
I especially believe in a start up a formal performance review system is counter productive. Larger companies can't seen to get away from it.
best, GL HOFFMAN