I just read a piece in on the HBR’s website (https://hbr.org/2015/09/why-more-and-more-companies-are-ditching-performance-ratings) that suggests that 1) companies are ditching performance reviews; and 2) that this is a good idea. Like most of the articles that I have read on this subject, this piece is mostly gobbledygook (using the Merriam Webster definition). Several points:
- The headline of the article doesn’t represent fairly represent a detail of what seems to be happening (at least by thoughtful players) in the real world;
- Companies will always be tuning their performance evaluation methods. But, saying that they are ditching them isn’t (generally) what I would call a fair representation of what they are doing;
- Employees need to understand:
- What is expected of them;
- Whether or not they are meeting those expectations;
- What changes might be in order to improve their performance, whether or not it is below expectations; and
- Given limited resources why their compensation adjustments (given the likelihood that there are a large number of employees in the compensation pool) are where they are;
if they are going to perform in a way that makes sense for both the
employee and the company they work for;
- Further, I haven’t seen anyone who is proposing “ditching performance ratings” explain how the previously enumerated (in the last major bullet point) objectives are going to be met without some sort of performance ratings scheme;
- Getting back to the gobbledygook statement. There is a lot of jargon in the article and the assertions made in the article are not support.
Those are my thoughts.
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