RIP Employee Performance Review, You Will NOT Be Missed
Years ago I was walking through a client site, it was strangely quiet and all the manager's office doors were shut. I asked a manager, “What’s going on around here, why is everyone so quiet today?” He responded by explaining that all the managers were busy doing their yearly reviews of their staff, and that they were due to HR by the end of the day. While this may be a typical scenario, it left me thinking, “How unfair?” 
Here were managers busy trying to finish up reports that could very well determine raises, promotions, firings, bonuses, etc, with nothing more than their memories. An entire year of performance wrapped up into one sheet of paper. How could that possibly accurately reflect the performance and skills of someone from the entire past year?
Next my worries wondered to the process after these reviews. After they were handed in and used to determine the fate of these subordinates, who was rating the management? Shouldn’t management be held responsible for helping those with weak reviews get better? They were given the power to judge them, without a responsibility to do anything about it. It seemed unfair, and completely useless in terms of helping the company grow. What a waste of time, trying to remember months or even a whole year worth of tasks, projects, accomplishments, and errors.
That eerie experience solidified my passion and belief in employee coaching and my belief that the typical employee review should be banned from every company. Typical reviews focus on your weaknesses, and because they are so objective they often leave employees thinking, “The boss doesn’t like me,” not “The boss is right, I should work on that.” An honest, straightforward, and conversational relationship that focuses on results (not personal qualities) should replace all one-sided manager dominated employee assessments. One step further from that, all managers should be held accountable for the success of their employees, not just the pointing out of their weaknesses.
When companies have a strong coaching culture, weaknesses can be addressed in a timely manner on a regular basis, not just once a year. Companies with coaching as a major part of their culture understand that management must take an active role in developing their staff, not just for the employee’s sake, but also for the sake of sales and profits that affect the company’s bottom line. A manager that scores his staff once a year with no effort to improve upon employee weaknesses is a worse detriment to the bottom line than any one lazy employee.
Decreased training budgets and lower company profits make integrating coaching relationships into your business more imperative than ever.
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