Performance Appraisals Done Right

April 3, 2023

Which of these statements does not belong with the others:

• Root canal
• Fingernails scratching a chalkboard
• Chewing a plastic straw (that one makes my skin crawl!)
• A baby laughing
• Performance appraisals
• Colonoscopy

Clearly, the answer is “a baby laughing!” If you guessed wrong, you may have never given or received a traditional performance appraisal, or you are an endodontist or gastroenterologist who makes your living doing procedures that are typically not a subject at a dinner party (“Hey honey, can you get the burgers off the grill and then share with Tom and Betty the favorite part of your last colonoscopy?”)

Here at BestDayHR we are big fans of healthy teeth, colons, and laughing babies, but NOT big fans of performance appraisals – in fact we would go so far as saying we really dislike them. If you agree, have you ever thought about the reasons why? Here is our justification for being so snarky towards them:

First – can you imagine telling your kids annually what they are doing well and pointing out their areas of opportunity? How long have we accepted the idea that once a year we will take these super complex and layered employees and boil down their annual performance to five lines? Does this sound familiar? “Cindy does a great job working with customers. She is always attentive to their needs. However, there are times that she gets too busy and can be short when she is stressed. Please work on managing your workload so your stress level decreases.” Do you think Cindy walks away motivated after reading that little ditty? Does her performance actually change?

Second, there is a great article that discusses the flaws of performance appraisals. What was fascinating is how subjective performance appraisals are. Sometimes we think that once we become supervisors that we become objective beings – however, hate to burst the bubble, but we are all emotional, subjective individuals. Need proof? In the above article it quotes the following research:

The most comprehensive research on what ratings actually measure was conducted by Michael Mount, Steven Scullen, and Maynard Goff and published in the Journal of Applied Psychology in 2000. Their study—in which 4,492 managers were rated on certain performance dimensions by two bosses, two peers, and two subordinates—revealed that 62% of the variance in the ratings could be accounted for by individual raters’ peculiarities of perception. Actual performance accounted for only 21% of the variance. This led the researchers to conclude (in How People Evaluate Others in Organizations, edited by Manuel London): “Although it is implicitly assumed that the ratings measure the performance of the ratee, most of what is being measured by the ratings is the unique rating tendencies of the rater. Thus ratings reveal more about the rater than they do about the ratee.”

We could go on and on, but you need to get back to work. One last exercise, which of these statements does not belong with the others:

• Meaningful and timely recognition
• Feeling needed and belonging to a team
• Achievable goals that you help set
• Performance appraisals

Again, performance appraisals stick out, but true performance management, growth, and performance recognition is a real thing, does drive change for a person and an organization, and is much easier to achieve than you might think.

BestDayHR is grateful for the scars we have achieved working within organizations that stuck to tired performance appraisals, and are grateful for the organizations where we were given the opportunity to chart a different course. Taking these experiences, we created our performance software, which we called Engagement. Why the name change? Because Engagement is simple to use, meaningful for those involved, and supports personal and professional growth, which moves forward the success of any organization.

Put us to the test, we promise it is as fun as a baby laughing.

From your friends at BestDayHR.