For everyone facing annual reviews

[lillibet]

Annual Job Review Is 'Total Baloney,' Expert Says

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128362511&ft=1&f=1001

Employee performance reviews should be eliminated, according to Samuel Culbert: "First, they're dishonest and fraudulent. And second, they're just plain bad management." The UCLA business professor has written a new book expanding on that view.

Comments

[dpolicar]

Well, yes.

That said, two things:
* They are sometimes the only explicit, tangible feedback one receives from one's management as to how well one is perceived as doing one's job. This ought not be true, but it often is.

And that feedback is not only psychologically useful, it also provides some protection from retroactive confabulation if things go pear-shaped and suddenly you've always been a screwup.

* They often serve as a regular mechanism for salary review, which I suspect flattens out the salary discrepancies between more and less assertive employees. (Insofar as less assertive employees are less likely to ask for raises that their management would be willing to give if asked.)

So... I dunno.

Would a more regular process of rating and rewarding performance be preferable? Certainly.

But would eliminating annual reviews and replacing them with nothing at all be preferable?

Well, my intuition is that it would provide the employer with more power and less accountability with respect to the employee. Some people consider that an improvement, no doubt. I'm not sure I'm one of them.