HR urged to scrap traditional appraisal systems
The familiar ritual of annual performance appraisals has become badly tarnished for all too many HR professionals in the United States, according to a study published by US human resources magazine Workforce.
Dayton Fandray, the author of the Workforce report, reckons that appraisals were a perfectly acceptable model for measuring performance in the old command-and-control style of organisational leadership.
But today, with the widespread emphasis on teamwork, shared leadership, and an ongoing struggle to find and retain qualified employees, it’ s a model that is increasingly out of favour.
Now, more and more US companies, it seems, are turning to a process of ongoing assessment and feedback.
Instead of measuring employees’ performance and pointing out where they fall short, organisations will achieve more results by finding ways to fine-tune and improve their systems, says Fandray.
Backlash against appraisals
According to Fandray’ s reading of the literature, the anti-appraisal backlash is gaining momentum. A small but increasingly vocal group of US researchers and consultants argue that the performance appraisal model no longer has much validity.
Voicing the concerns of many sceptics, Fred Nickols, a senior consultant with The Distance Consulting Company in New Jersey, advocates an end to performance appraisal.
Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins have also joined the crusade against appraisals. Their research has led them to urge managers to decouple everything that features in the typical review: coaching, feedback, compensation and promotion decisions, and legal documentation.
Want to know more?
Title: The new thinking in performance appraisals , by Dayton Fandray, Workforce, May 2001.
Availability: Workforce is published monthly by ACC Communications Inc, 245 Fischer Avenue B-2, Costa Mesa, California CA 92626, USA. For subscription services, tel: 001 303 604 1464 (USA 800 444 6485). Or email the online editor Todd Raphael for more information . . . raphaelt@workforce.com.
Take a look at the article online — see what you think. You will also find tips, tools and sample appraisals to help you implement new forms of performance management . . . www.workforce.com/05/01/feature2