It is definitely the case that we are seeing the death of the annual performance appraisal across many organisations. But it is still hanging on in there in many and if not has been replaced with six-monthly or quarterly formal processes which aren't necessarily improving performance or encouraging managers to do them!
If, as the HR guardian of the process, you are still clinging to annual appraisals then ask yourself a few questions:
- Am I insisting on annual performance reviews so I can use ratings and neatly covert them to pay awards/bonus? Because there are ways of approaching this without asking managers to go through lots of appraisal paperwork, clicks or screens.
- Do I know that the appraisal process actually improves performance? (and I don't mean adding up the subjective ratings people have been given!)
- Do we have underperformers who just aren't improving or good performers leaving?
- Are managers avoiding the process altogether?
- Do we even have the internal talent to fill roles?
- Do managers find objective-setting painful?
- Do people think that pay/bonus decisions are unfair or too subjective?
If the answers to the above are a bit towards the negative then this tells you that what you're doing isn't working. Sometimes its not just amending the paperwork, its throwing the whole approach up in the air to make things simple and more real-life.
As the saying goes: What got us here won't necessarily get us there...the start of 2021 could be the time to reimaging how you manage performance.
FREE WEBINAR: MANAGING 'HYBRID-WORKING' PERFORMANCE FOR OVERNIGHT RESULTS
DITCH TRADITIONAL PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL WITH 'CHINWAG' Reduce the paperwork (or ‘clicks’) with flexible, ‘admin-lite’ performance review on an if needed, when needed basis.
