Employee Performance Assessment? Beware !
February 24, 2007
Employee appraisal systems that are predominantly in use at organizations the world over are one of the most persistent management follies.
If one thinks of it logically – measuring performance once or twice a year in marathon sessions and base vital aspects such as pay, bonuses, promotion, and even dismissal decisions on that – it would show up as being completely ludicrous.
And to add insult to injury – these systems/methods/frameworks don’t even measure performance. They do not just fail to measure performance objectively or timely, they fail to measure performance - period.
What they do measure is compliance with some, more or less arbitrary, targets that were obsolete the moment they were dictated or agreed upon. Being in a ‘Balanced Scorecard’ environment with 360 degree assessment does not alter that fact in the slightest.
Once we now examine the list of decisions that are based upon these ‘performance assessments’ it becomes clear why these assessments form one of the prime reasons for employee dissatisfaction, and draw only thinly veiled sarcasm from most managers involved in their execution.
There is furthermore substantial empirical evidence that performance assessment in its current form is demonstrably harmful – therefore doing nothing would be better than continuing with the current practice.
