The end of the year is upon us again. Time for all the heartwarming clichés; decked out shop windows and cheerful lights on the high streets, an abundance of presents and the end-of-year interviews. And just about the latter, also known as the dreaded performance reviews, there is good news!
The business community is finally beginning to see that these talks in their current format are not entirely appropriate in this day and age. That the effectiveness is a bit outdated anyway. If they are at all ever really effective have been.
Assessing someone only at the end of the year is disastrous. If something is going on, discuss it as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the less likely it is that your colleague will do something about it. can learn from.
Nor are they generally the most positive conversations. Particularly since they often directly affect the appraisee's salary or bonus. That linkage blurs bejudgments are soon in farjudgments.
Employees only enter the conversation with an eye on the annual salary increase anyway. They are really not eager for a dose of last-minute advice and points for improvement for the coming year.
The average manager often has to give substantiated ratings to several employees. And that's a lot of work. Also for the employee, because he, too, must prepare. In the end, it costs everyone a lot of energy, time and money.
Professor Kilian Wawoe has mapped out the costs of this quite well; the costs of performance reviews in terms of hours spent by managers, IT support for the processes and guidance from human resources departments amount to 1 billion euros per year! Wawoe has now written several books on the subject and has been working since the early 2000s to quash performance appraisals.
By the way, this is no carte blanche to have no appraisals at all, but if you want to appraise someone and you want it to have a positive impact as well, a) separate it from pay, b) make it an ongoing process, and c) make sure you have input from multiple perspectives.
At my previous employer, they had come up with something on that; peer reviews. The honest and unrelenting feedback from your colleagues. Which you were allowed to pick out for yourself, of course. However, there is a powerful core to this. With nice reports you can fool a busy manager who manages many colleagues. Your colleagues will see through that more easily.
In line with the approach of indefinite vacations you can make it a lot easier on yourself as a manager. Let the team itself judge each other's performance. Two see more than one and as a manager you are then not alone in your judgment. There are numerous start-ups that offer team feedback functionalities such as Impraise and Starred.
Have more frequent conversations with your employees about how things are going and what you both are up against. Keep track of those conversations together and at the end of the year plan a conversation purely about financial compensation based on those conversations and insights from the team. That outcome can then no longer be a surprise.
Of course that also takes time, money and energy. But then you use those to grow together instead of judging each other just before the holidays. In doing so, you also preserve the relationship between employee and manager. That's good news for you. And for your manager.
