Do you think performance evaluations provide any benefit?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Just read this New Yorker piece about performance evaluations and how they’re going out of style.

Points from the article:

  1. Studies indicate that everyone dislikes performance evaluations, though some more than others.

  2. Performance evaluations can make job performance worse.

  3. They are often sensitive to the biases and prejudices of the manager, and thus not reflective of true job performance.

  4. They are costly, especially compared to the benefit they provide.
    My personal opinion:

I feel like they are a waste of time at my workplace. I get my rating and a perfunctory “GREAT JOB, MONSTRO!!” written underneath it every year. Although I’m grateful that I have never gotten a bad rating, I wouldn’t consider what I do receive to be honest feedback. I think my management appreciates me, as do my coworkers. But I never know what areas I need to work on, or whether my “greatness” is merely relative.

Also, we don’t get tangibly rewarded for high ratings. So when I get the A rating, there’s a part of me that thinks “big whoop.” Sometimes the cynic in me thinks that if there was real money on the line, maybe management wouldn’t hand out good grades as readily as they do.

My boss wants me to consider management. But I don’t wanna because I’d have to do performance evaluations. I don’t want to deal with that shit.

What’s your opinion?

2

In my company, front-line managers are not allowed to hand out evaluations that are too good. Upper management will veto a manager’s evaluations that average too high.

3

It seems like an important performance management tool for both the under- and over-performers. I’m talking about the UK here, over in the US you probably just fire people, but here you need a bit more of a strutured approach. You also need to tell the good people how awesome they are and why they should keep being so at your company.
It is possibly a colossal waste of time for the middle 50%.

Just speculating, though, I’ve never worked in a corporate or office environment. We do have them in my faculty, but they only seem to be meaningful in a negative sense. Like 90% of people’s appraisals are just a quick chat over coffee, you wouldn’t even write them up. The other 10% will be serious, often adversarial meetings for people who are struggling with their career.

4

Unless the employer is actually going to invest in the employee who performs well, and is prepared to mentor them, then its a complete waste of time and effort.

If a performance system is a way of getting rid of underperforming staff, then all that happens is that it becomes a matter of dread, and leads to lots of employment relations problems, and then I step in as the Union rep to discover that the system was not operated correctly.

When commercial management consultants come into an organisation for a fee, they have to justify the outlay - so they will change or introduce some form of appraisal system - they will never ever tell an organisation that everything is fine and need no changes.

Typical things that go wrong.

Unrealistic targets

Targets outside the scope of the employees work/grade

Too many targets

Trivial or inappropriate targets

Targets with no realistic application or relation to the work

Little or no input from the employee, or input from employee is pretty much ignored

Lack of periodic reviews to discuss progress

Managers untrained, not experienced.

Managers who are overworked, going through the motions

Over rewarding

Under rewarding

Differently rewarding - such as higher levels of staff can gain promotions, yet others on lower grades merely get marked as competent

Time scales wrong

Attempting to force a perfectly motivated and competent employee to jump through hoops because of company philosophy, which in turn is extremely patronising.

Not all staff want to be thrusting and developing, they just want to do their work, get their pay and go home, they do a regular days work and believe that is enough, and most of the time it is enough.

Treating staff differently - favouritism

Using the process to deal with disciplinary/behavioural/ attendance issues- these should always be dealt with as they arise and not many months afterwards in a skewed appraisal system objective.

Not taking into account different circumstances - one branch might find achieving certain targets easy, and another branch may find that the same targets are almost impossible - this happens a lot in education where students from some areas do far better than those from others.

Lack of proper oversight, managers will almost always back each other up, no matter how poor the appraisal targets and appraisal operation.

Lack of credibility, no-one believes in it, lets face it, if managers are not properly appraised then why would employees have any faith in it?

Staff appraisal tends to be bureaucratic and a poor substitute for a manager being able to spot talent, develop it, and identify problem staff and take appropriate action.

Its a poor substitute, and its just a form of de-skilling managers, it means you can recruit less able managers for less money. Good managers, are expensive, so are good employees, yet these are exactly the ones that any organisation need to retain - problem is - this does not immediately look good on the balance sheet.

5

Like any tool, it can be good if used properly. Problem is, very often they’re not used properly.

A lot of management methods and structures are attempts to explain common sense. In this case, the “common sense” part is “give feedback to your employees” + “look for opportunities for improvement” + “act on those opportunities”. That is good; getting stuck on “filling the paperwork” is not.

I once was part of a team where anybody who didn’t work on the Sales sub-team got a division in our grades that our managers found very strange. Half of the people who’d been asked to fill a questionary about our performance gave us 0 in the “customer focus” section; the other half gave us 4.

  1. There was no N/A option.
  2. Some genius had actually written in the instructions “if something is not relevant mark it 0”.
  3. The half who gave us 0s did not have the concept of “internal customer”; since we didn’t interact directly with customers, they gave us 0s. The other half did have that concept; since we did listen to our customers (all of whom happened to be internal) etc etc they gave us 4s.
6

I’ve been in this situation. When I was at the late, lamented Borders books, there was a policy that there would be a merit increase for a top rating. Therefore, managers were not allowed to give a top rating to more than 3 people in their group. They would pick who to give the permitted raises based on completely arbitrary criteria (this one has seniority, that one just had a baby, whatever popped into their heads really) and everyone else got reduced ratings regardless of their performance.

BTW, don’t let anyone tell you Amazon put Borders out of business. It was hideously mismanaged.

7

I can easily see how performance evaluations could be done so poorly that they are counter-productive but how would a company weed out poor performers without one (or reward high performers)? I’m one who hates them but I think they are important.

8

The catch, as I see it, is that all too often, the way that companies allocate their raise money either shafts everyone, or gives one person a decent raise, and nobody else.

Performance at the expected level doesn’t necessarily warrant an increase in compensation, but if someone does perform above and beyond in some fashion, companies need to recognize and reward that, or else one of two things is going to happen (assuming a reasonably confident and bright employee). One, they’re going to decide that it’s all bullshit, and regress back toward the expected level, as their extra effort and sacrifice was just met with an “atta boy!” and no real money. Or, if they can get a better job, they will, probably getting a hefty raise out of the deal.

But what just about every company I’ve ever worked for does is say something like “Department A gets a 2% aggregate increase in salary” and the manager is tasked with divvying that 2% up among the rank and file. If the manager sucks, then his cronies likely get the lion’s share of that, or everyone gets a blanket 2% regardless, which shafts the people who work like hell and aren’t friends with the manager.

If the manager’s good, then he has a horrid task, because it’s entirely possible (and even likely) that most of his people performed very well, and now he has to choose how to minimally reward all those people. (I personally think a 2% raise is pretty poor)

Plus, beyond the compensation problems, you have the issue of tracking performance for an entire year; unless they’re taking detailed notes, it’s probably going to reflect a general opinion, and whatever you’ve done lately.

I personally think they’re worthless as they’re usually done, as I’ve got middling ones, and then HUGE performance bonuses later in the year, and also got stellar ones, and got laid off a month later, with the usual being good, but not superhero caliber, and piss-ant raises that are less than I’d expect, considering what they say on the review forms.

9

I spent many years on committees trying to improve our performance review process, and we did surveys and focus groups to see what worked for people.

The most important thing is that if a manager manages well, the review should not be a surprise. The worst review is when the manager throughout the year has either said good job or (more likely), nothing and then the review lists five things that have to improve. A manager who doesn’t give accurate feedback during the year is the one whose performance should get dinged.

Second, the review should be accurate. The number one thing people hated was to get a review after the ranking was done which said that a person didn’t do some job which they did. In that place we required that there be a discussion between the manager and the employee about the accomplishment lists, and that they both signed that this happened, and revised inaccurate items. The revised list came into the review session so other managers could see it. It protected good employees a manager might not like and kept teacher’s pets who did nothing from getting good reviews. My last two places don’t do this - the manager walks in with a slide per person if that.

Finally, forced distributions of good and bad people suck. Some people do better jobs than others, but it isn’t 20 -70-10. And if everyone in the middle is the same and mediocre, you are not doing a good job hiring. Is having a bunch of world famous researchers in your department a problem because HR says only 1 person can be a superstar?

I pretty much agree with the New Yorker article, by the way. Tell someone doing a good job he is mediocre, and pay him that way, and before you know it he’ll either leave or slack off to meet your expectations.

10

I work in HR, and I manage people. And I hate annual performance reviews.

As an employee, if you hear anything in your annual, good or bad, that you did not already know, then your manager is not doing his/her job. My approach is that I should be having “mini” performance discussions throughout the year, so no one is surprised at anything they hear in their annual.

11

I worked in the same company for 32 years. I never saw or participated in an employee review that accomplished anything but waste time. When I managed employees, my sole goal was to get all the reviews done as quickly as possible with the least stress. The reason was simple-any employee (including myself) who was in line for a negative review was aware of it due to informal meetings during the year. If the employee had attendance problems I couldn’t wait for the yearly review to address that. If the employee didn’t deliver a product on time, everyone would notice almost immediately. If the employee did something great, then recognition should happen immediately. As for money, during the review process is the worst possible time to get a performance raise. During the review process all raises are out of a pool that everyone is competing for. For the rest of the year, raises were awarded for performance and after it was determined the budget/customer could cover it. Out of phase raises are uniformly easier to justify and get.
PEFs are a waste. Their only possible result is to make discipline harder since the PEF by their very nature can only discuss issues that are old and probably not fully relevant and probably doesn’t discuss the discipline issue anyway. But usually not even that. Evaluations have never come up during any employee actions, good or bad, I ever participated in or heard about.

12

Before the rise of the HR department and the performance management system, companies somehow managed to fire people who did a bad job, and reward people who did a good job. It’s simple. If someone is doing a bad job or slacking off, you fire them. If someone is doing a great job, you promote them or give them a raise. The only purpose the performance evaluation serves is to document all of this to insulate the company from lawsuits.

My company has moved to a system in which only the top ten percent can get an above average review, and only the bottom ten percent can get a below average review This means that eighty percent of the workforce is told year after year that their performance is just adequate. It makes for very annoyed and disgruntled employees. I also hate the fact that everyone is required to write their own evaluations, which are then reviewed by the managers. It creates a tremendous amount of stress for employees who may be doing a good job, but don’t know how to write it up.

I’ve been a crusader against the performance management system for years, but unfortunately I don’t think it’s going away any time soon.

13

The way my company manages reviews is a waste of time. This has not always been true.

Current state: rankings are done by a team of upper management before the review process officially starts. BEFORE REVIEWS ARE WRITTEN everything important has already been decided - what bonus, any stock, and so on. The reviews themselves have to be written to accommodate this. Then the employee has to write a self review and there is a 6 week long process that is all ultimately meaningless.

Former state: 360 reviews are completed, with questionnaires. There are measurable goals set each year and tracked all throughout the year. At review time, input is received from the 360 reviews from peers and cross-functional groups. Then a review is assembled. Bonus is based on the results of performance towards goals and the 360 results.

Former state was instructive and measurable. Current state is like being back in high school. The cool “kids” do well.

14

I don’t believe they’re a waste of time, but I definitely agree with this:

We are also “strongly encouraged” to do self-evaluations prior to the time our superiors have to write reviews, supposedly as a way to remind them of what we’ve accomplished during the year. A few of us refer to it as the annual “I Love Me” memo.

I don’t know anyone in management who has ever expressed anything other than frustration in having to write them. They are very reluctant to spend time on them, and our evaluations are often late because people have to be begged and threatened to complete them. I find it hard to believe that any good can come from forced evaluations.

But I guess the question in the OP is whether or not they provide benefit. As mentioned in the quote above, it would be ideal if employees always knew where they stood with their superiors, but reality is often different. So I guess the benefit would be an opportunity to figure out what the people above you who don’t necessarily communicate with you actually think of your work, for better or worse.

15

I don’t mind the performance review, but nothing in it should be a surprise.

What I hate is that everywhere I’ve worked (and everywhere my friends have worked), managers have to jam their employees into some fucking bell curve so that the average raise in the area doesn’t go over whatever percentage upper management decides is acceptable (after giving themselves stock options, bonuses, and strippers).

This is ridiculous. If you have a team of five people, and they’ve all worked their asses off on a project all year, you shouldn’t have to score one really high, one middling-high, one in the middle, one middling-low, and one very low.

+1. Plus several, actually.

16

oooh, ooh, I forgot another horrible thing about performance evaluations at Borders: You had to write up goals/projects for next year. Sounds reasonable. Except you would be marked down for any that went uncompleted, regardless of the reason. Since there was a revolving door of CEOs, projects were always being canceled. If the project was canceled by upper management, YOU would be marked down as not completing a goal. Awesomesauce.

Oh god I could go on about the useless processes, the pointless punishments, the meetings whose sole purpose was to schedule more meetings, the chronic understaffing, the insulting dress code, the draconian policies, the low pay… all seemingly engineered to make any employee with a shred of self-respect and transferable skill run far and fast.

17

It’s been years since I worked at a company that did this nonsense, but I have friends in large corporations and my impression is that performance reviews nowadays are primarily used to pave the way for layoffs. If your large company is continually downsizing, your performance review has little to do with your actual performance, but reflects upper management’s perception that your department is next on the cutting block. That way, they can maintain the polite fiction that they’re pruning the under-performing employees rather than giving the heave-ho to dedicated workers who were unfortunate enough to have jobs on the wrong part of an Excel spreadsheet.

18

I worked for the Dept of the Navy for 26 years as an engineer. I can honestly say that I got meaningful reviews for 3 of those years. I did good work, played well with others, didn’t have attendance issues, and didn’t cause problems, so I was always solidly just above average. Getting the highest score required justification from the boss, and they didn’t like to do that.

For a while, we were strictly Pass/Fail - there’s a motivation to excel! :rolleyes:

It wasn’t till my last few years before retirement that I got honest-to-goodness feedback and guidance from my boss (who happened to be the best boss I ever had.) I don’t think I was God’s Gift to the command, but I was an asset to the organization, I met my deadlines, and I didn’t bitch unnecessarily. And thanks to that boss, I got more money as raises than as bonuses, enabling me to retire with a higher monthly pension, since it was based on high-3 years’ earnings. But money aside, he really made the effort to make the evals worth something.

Two bosses in the distant past were absolutely worthless when it came to evals. One flat-out said “As far as I’m concerned, you’re all average.” Translation: He was too lazy to do his job. The other one graded you based on how good you made him look. Naturally, his favorites got high-profile assignments, and those of us who didn’t want to pucker up to his buttocks dealt with the mundane but necessary tasks. Thankfully, I was stuck with him for less than a year before we had yet another reorg…

19

Oh… self-evaluations are idiotic. It’s either answer completely honestly, and ding yourself, or answer somewhat dishonestly, and basically dare them to ding you.

I don’t really like either, but when placed in that situation, I say I’m a fucking rock star, and let them do the squirming with trying to tell me that I’m not. Most people are too confrontation-averse to actually do it , and few are motivated enough to significantly raise your scores.

20

A number of good points have been raised already, so I’ll raise my own personal pet peeve that manifests at review time. The software. Computer software has a way of being extremely good when the user is a paying customer who has the power to choose. You cannot imagine a less empowered user than a corporate employee completing a performance review, and the quality shows. It’s an Internet Explorer 6-compatible hell of “To continue, please do not check the discontinue box on the previous page, but first install the Silverlight plugin at the beginning of this process.”

Somehow I can delude myself into participating in the collective illusion that I’m offering a sincere self-evaluation that’s being sincerely evaluated. But somehow the shitty HR software always brings the power dynamics into sharp, depressing relief for me.