Last months blog around ditching performance appraisals was so popular I thought I'd bring you a sequel! - Another couple of good reasons to ditch calendar driven, formal performance appraisals:
One: The performance and development objectives
If I have an annual appraisal I generally have to agree objectives with my boss for the year ahead: it might be that HR says that these should be updated as necessary from time-to-time but we know in reality that this doesn't happen. Those objectives are frozen in time and we tend to ignore them until the 'half-year review', by which point priorities have changed and in some cases the manager has moved on elsewhere!
Why are objectives six or twelve months long in any event? In real-life I may need to agree a priority that is five weeks or five months in length - can everything really be neatly packaged into these 6/12 timeframes? The intention is probably around simplicity for the appraisal process across the year but ends up being a pointless exercise for the sake of filling in paperwork. What are the hallmarks of and criteria for 'objectives' anyway: why do some make it to the appraisal paperwork and some don't? If I give somebody something to do and a deadline to do it couldn't that be described as an objective? I don't add each of these delegated pieces of work to the 'objectives for the year ahead' section of the appraisal each time they arise otherwise the appraisal would end up being hundreds of pages long!
We have also had the awful SMART cliché drummed into us for years - nothing wrong with it in essence but managers need more guidance than just being told to 'agree SMART objectives'. In my experience 80% of objectives just aren't specific, measurable etc and are instead full of jargon and subjective nonsense such as 'lead the project'; 'successfully roll-out X' etc. These objectives often lead to the 'was it achieved' debate - and if this debate lasts more than four seconds then its probably not a SMART objective; it was probably just a piece of advice!
Two: The paperwork or online systems/apps
Appraisals have a lot of paperwork in a lot of cases - and if not on paper then its on some fancy, millennial-focused app or system from the latest start-up. Looks great but still means I need to have conversations with my team member and then go online and update various fields (same as filling out the traditional paperwork really!). All of these things add up to another thing for managers to have to do, no matter how funky or innovative it looks. If I'm ok with how my direct report is doing and they are ok can't we just have the brief conversation in a lot of cases: why is it a one-size-fits-all approach where I have to jump though all the process and admin hoops for all my people, all of the time?
Adding in 360 degree feedback, 'shout-outs for good work' and other 'social media-style' mechanisms to the appraisal process is all very well but can add up to a lot of info and data (which may also sometimes appear to be contradictory!). The employee strives to 'produce the tangible evidence' of their good work with all this stuff but often it's having to be done partly because of those badly-worded objectives that haven't helped the individual build their 'business case' for more pay, bonus or whatever. Fixing our objective-setting skills may be a better way of dealing with things: salespeople have either smashed target or they haven't - it's clear, tangible and doesn't need lots of other gimmicks to help 'log good work'.
So, another two powerful reasons to let go of the past and not plan for 2019's annual performance appraisals!