The “traditional” Performance Review process is painful and has questionable results

There’s definitely something wrong with Performance Reviews. They’ve been described as “fraudulent, bogus, and dishonest.¹” Between 60% to 90% of employees and managers say they dislike the performance evaluation process², and yet 90% of companies keep doing things the same old way². Why?

We’ve seen this movie before

When it comes to Performance Reviews there’s a standard playbook:

• Start of the year: Employee and Manager meet and set goals for the upcoming year
• Mid-way through: They meet to review status of these goals
• End of Year:
  • Uncomfortable meeting to discuss a year’s worth of performance in 30-60 minutes
  • Some goals are no longer relevant
  • Manager focuses mostly on areas for improvement
  • Employee is ambivalent

Manager’s typically dread doing Performance Reviews and Employees mostly walk away with a list of after-the-fact things they could have done better. Where is the good in this process?

Solving the Pains of Performance Reviews

Meeting once a year or every six months to set goals and document results in a performance appraisal is not effective. Leading organizations know this and it’s why companies like Deloitte and Adobe have adopted Continuous Performance Management (CPM) strategies³.

CPM is a continual holistic process; it involves near-term objective and goal setting, regular one-to-ones (i.e., coaching sessions or “check-ins”) and real-time feed­back.  It’s a more natural process that eliminates much of what we hate about traditional performance management.

CPM in a nutshell:

• Employee and Manager agree to a few short-term goals for the Employee
• Each goal has a clearly defined means of tracking progress and defining success
• Employee and Manager have regular “check-ins” (e.g., meet every 2 weeks) where progress can be reviewed and discussed
• Feedback (from both parties) is documented throughout the process
• Adjustments and “course-corrections” are made on the fly

Are Performance Reviews Still Relevant?

CPM doesn’t eliminate the need for the annual Performance Review, but it does make the process a lot better. CPM strategies make Performance Reviews:

• More efficient
• Less subjective
• Relevant
• More productive
• Less uncomfortable

See For Yourself

Join me and miviva co-creator Joe Rotella, SPHR, SHRM-SCP on Thursday, July 16, at 1PM EST to see how to take the pains out of performance reviews, and how adopting a Continuous Performance Management (CPM) approach can drive performance in your organization.

We’ll show you miviva – a new software solution that gives you one place for everyone to manage their goals — set them, track progress against actual results, capture feedback, and evaluate performance — so you can keep focused and achieve what you’re striving for. Register to attend here:

  Upcoming Live Webinar:
Taking the Pain Out of Performance Reviews
Date: July 16

Register Here

About Jared Dinsmore

Jared is the co-creator of miviva, a Continuous Performance Management solution that provides one place for everyone to manage their goals — set them, track progress against actual results, capture feedback, and evaluate performance — so you can keep focused and achieve what you’re striving for. Jared has background in HR Software, Usability Engineering and has been designing software for over 20 years.

References:

1. Samuel Culbert http://www.performancepreview.com/
2. HR Professionals’ Perceptions About Performance Management Effectiveness
3. Deloitte and Adobe have adopted Continuous Performance Management (CPM) strategies