Do you think performance evaluations provide any benefit?

[rbroome]

@HMS_Irruncible

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.

The software was one of the few parts of our review process that was helpful. There were canned sentences available for most of the text boxes. By just picking from a list you could sound like you put some effort into it. Of course the boxes in all the reviews tended to say the same thing, but it was better than blanks.