Down With Performance Reviews!

I am not a fan of Performance Reviews. My own experience has been that they consistently fall short of my expectations, and I'm speaking not only as a recipient, but as someone who has written my fair share over the years. They tend to be either too shallow to do much good, or they create an unnecessary rift with the employee who hopes (and often expects) to hear nothing but superlatives about their contributions.

I now have company in my views. Two authors—a professor from UCLA and an editor from the Wall Street Journal have written a book with a title that says it all: "Get Rid of the Performance Review!"

The writers, Samuel Culbert and Lawrence Rout pull no punches in their analysis. They believe the damage inflicted by reviews by far eclipses their benefit. Or as expressed by Culbert, reviews are "the most pretentious, fraudulent, ill-advised exercise taking place at companies." (Tell us how you really feel, Sam--)

Completely eliminating reviews, though, is not necessarily the answer. Behind the charade is actually a good intention: to shine a spotlight on the employee's true talents and contributions, and to find a way to develop their skills and capabilities. So it's more about changing the process and tools.

There are a lot of useful ways to accomplish this, but one of the more intriguing is to change ownership of the experience from being management driven to employee-led. We now expect employees to own their careers, so doesn't it make sense that they own the resources that help map and guide them on their chosen path? A review that therefore highlights the employee's achievements, written in their own words, and accompanied by a vision for future contributions, sets the stage for a meaningful discussion.

So if you want to engage employees rather than generate angst and anxiety, take a look at how reviews can be revamped to really focus on the employees' needs, preferences and aspirations.
 
Jennifer