A lot of us professionals have been there before. You’re sitting in a room with your manager and you don’t know what to think.
It’s almost as if you’re being re-interviewed for your job. One mistake and it could lead to a bad vibe with you and them throughout your work career.
Here are some facts around annual performance appraisals that will surprise you:
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1. Not Consistent Enough
1/5 think their bosses don’t even think about the appraisal until they’re in the room.
This is one of the downsides of having annual performance reviews. The manager involved probably doesn’t have it in his mind till the day of.
There’s a lot on a manager’s mind (especially if they have a big team), hell, a horrible boss will not really care about his employee’s performance enough to give a legitimate appraisal.
2. Trust Issues?
44% don’t think their boss was honest during the process.
A little less than half of the employees surveyed reviewed that their boss was not honest.
A lot of bosses out there just want to focus on what they believe are more important tasks and will just say things to get the appraisal finished in an expedient fashion.
I’m sure that a manager working for a small or medium enterprise doesn’t necessarily have appraisals on the top of his priorities list.
3. Are Appraisals Fair?
⅕ felt they had had an unfair appraisal.
I always blame office politics around statistics like this. Whenever there is lack of fairness or lack of trust there could be a bigger picture around the situation.
Unfortunately, it’s the way of the world sometimes.
This is why I believe more frequent feedback is a lot more beneficial to the employee. They will be able to see how attitudes and their performance has changed. Instead of just one performance review.
4. Performance Appraisals A Good Thing?
90% of appraisals are painful and don’t work; and they produce an extremely low percentage of top performers.
That’s a very telling statistic right there.
It’s already tough for an employee to be evaluated based on their work, but this doesn’t always reflect the full picture of what they’ve done. Think about how it impacts your best employees when you point out their failures over the past year and explain why they didn’t meet expectations.
It’s definitely not a good look. Performance appraisals can be a good thing, but they have to be executed perfectly and have very precise parameters that can be measured.
5. Do They Truly Reflect An Employees Work
45% of HR leaders don’t think annual performance reviews are an accurate appraisal for employees’ work.
HR leaders don’t necessarily think it’s accurate appraisal for an employees work, and I do believe that to be fairly true.
Also, a recency bias is possible. What if an employee is having a bad couple of weeks and isn’t performing to their highest ability? Are they going to be judged off that?
On the other end of the spectrum, an employee can cheat the system and can be productive a month before the appraisal to make it seem like they’ve done more.
6. Are Employees Rewarded Properly?
42% don’t think employees are rewarded fairly for their job performance.
I’m sure there’s a couple of offices out there that has an underperformer who is rewarded greatly, and an overperformer that isn’t rewarded at all.
Are these appraisals really giving the employees the proper look and allowing them to get rewarded properly?
That’s still up in the air.
That’s why leadership has to be active and actually get to know their employees’ work ethic.
7. Do They Bring Any Value?
Only 8% of companies report that their performance management process drives high levels of value.
Think about that, 8% of companies say that it bring any value at all!
So what’s the point? I personally think that they can be valuable if you improve three things. The frequency, instead of making it an annual employee assessment, make it monthly … weekly if possible.
Create more transparency around the system. Set clear guidelines that show what you’ll be looking for in the employee appraisals. And lastly, don’t make grueling.
We’re working on an employee engagement platform that makes performance appraisals process a lot easier, funner, and simpler.
8. They’re A Waste Of Time
58% of managers said it is not an effective use of time.
9. Quarterly Reviews Better?
4 times more likely to score at the top of Bersin by Deloitte’s Total Performance Index when employees review their personal goals quarterly.
10. Bad For Employee Engagement
58% of executives believe their current performance process does not drive employee engagement.
11. Don’t Improve Development
48% say their performance processes are “weak” in improving development and driving business value.
12. They Don’t Increase Employee Performance
30% of performance reviews ended up in decreased employee performance, according to a meta-analysis of 607 studies.
13. Raise Retention Rates With Constant Employee Feedback
14.9% lower turnover rates for companies who implement regular feedback.
What Are Your Thoughts On Annual Employee Performance Appraisals?
Like them, hate them, indifferent? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll gladly respond back.