Performance Failure or Performance Appraisal Failure (Reprise)

This is a reposting of three articles written to explore problems with systems that are in place today for appraising the performance of employees. Recent articles and discussions indicate that most performance appraisal systems fall short of the mark and this is an important opportunity for HR professionals to move forward with improvements. Comments are welcome.

Performance Failure or Performance Appraisal Failure – Part I: The Basics -  It should be like Management 101 to understand this concept: Any resource that must be managed by a business must have established benchmarks that define expected productivity as well as systems that provide the ability to measure deviations from that standard. Does this sound like a budgeting process? Of course! Financial resources are managed by a series of measurements that constantly offers direction to the occupants of corner offices on the top floor. A positive variance means success. The human resource is no less important, but the typical systems in place to advise upper management about the status of their workers leave a lot to be desired. – more –

Performance Failure or Performance Appraisal Failure – Part II: Variations on the Basics – The five core issues addressed earlier are: having reviews scheduled annually, broad unmeasurable objectives, lack of timing flexibility, subjective evaluations, and tying pay raises to performance reviews. Other system enhancements have added their own degree of difficulty in fixing what is wrong. The following is a logical extension of the first five points.     – more –

Performance Failure or Performance Appraisal Failure – Part III: What If’s, What Else’s and What Next -  In all honesty, writing about performance management ballooned far beyond the point that I originally planned to be the end. I have commented on other peoples’ blog posts about these issues and have watched others opine over solutions, but it is frustrating to see the me-too status quo advocates that are stuck in a rut of compliance with the way it has “always been done.” It was probably the desire not to appear to be another me-too voice that drove this beyond a single posting. – more –