Something has gotten into the management. Everywhere I look—meetings, focus groups, and blogs—managers talk about performance reviews. That’s good news for the many organizations that are finally realizing just how ineffective the annual employee review really is. In almost all cases, the annual review has little to do with performance but a lot to do with salary. The review meeting has become little more than a ritual. It is the annual meeting where a whole year of successes and failures is reduced to a few minutes of conversation.
These so-called performance meetings are pulled out of (or perhaps more appropriately compressed) out of a busy schedule to chat a bit about the past 12 months. The manager is often rushed and distracted and the employee defensive and anxious.
And let’s be honest. If it weren’t for the HR mandate that all employees have this meeting to create a role and collect a signature, the annual reviews would never happen. The review has become nothing more than a veiled attempt to justify petty pay increases and produce legally defensible documentation in the event the employee ever needs to be disciplined, counseled, or fired. For most organizations, it has little or nothing to do with performance, past or future. And during these difficult times, I’ve heard of several companies canceling reviews this year because wages are frozen. What else would a manager discuss at the annual review if not money?
The bad news is that many organizations still view the annual review as an attempt at performance management. The most common questions I hear from me are “what can we do to improve our annual review?” or “how can we get all our managers to do their annual reviews?”
My answer might surprise you. Stop doing annual reviews!
Yes, you read it right. Trying to fix the annual review is a bit like tying up the chairs on the Titanic. It’s an exercise in futility, a distraction at best. But it does little or nothing to change the outcome.
The workaround requires a change in attitude. Performance management is not something you do. It is not an event like an annual party or a family picnic. While these events can be enjoyed, don’t make culture family-friendly or fun during the other 363 days of the year, either.
Performance management is something that happens transparently but without incident. It doesn’t happen once a year, it happens every day, every week, every month. Performance management is embedded in a company’s culture and values, not an HR function. Effective performance management focuses on results. It’s not a task on a manager’s checklist because it’s never done and can never be turned off. It is a process that must take place continuously, effortlessly, smoothly, and spontaneously.
Where do you start? A cure to overcome the monotony of the performance review begins with aligning the individual performance of each employee with the goals of the organization. Weekly, monthly, and even spontaneous conversations can now focus on behaviors and attitudes that are productive or non-productive.
On rare occasions, a manager or employee must lose words and conversations because the conversation revolves around what you did last week or month and how you can do better in the future.
Copyright (c) 2009 Successful Performance Solutions