"The best kind of performance review is no performance review," says Aubrey Daniels, a clinical psychologist turned management consultant. "It's a sadistic process for what purpose I don't know."
The biggest problem with reviews, Daniels says, is that they happen too infrequently. Managers should address issues when they arise, not six or eight months later. "Think of a sports team: A coach doesn't wait until the end of a season to give his players feedback," he says.
The true goal of the performance review isn't to help the employee--it's to help the company. "A lot of people won't tell you this, but they don't need to document your good performance, just your poor one," Daniels says. "That way they have written documentation that'll help them get rid of you without fear of retribution."
Problems may well fester until they explode in an annual review.
For many workers, the annual performance evaluation is “this weird form you fill out every year that has nothing to do with everyday life,” said Robert Sutton, a professor and organizational psychologist at Stanford and co-author of the forthcoming book “Scaling Up Excellence.” Some companies have given up annual evaluations altogether.
But many businesses feel that they must use formal reviews and rankings to create an objective measurement of performance and goals, so that managers can reward and promote good employees, and give poorly performing ones a chance to improve (while creating a paper trail in case they must be dismissed).
Professor Sutton is wary of rankings and yearly evaluations in general. Many organizations, he said, would be better off if they provided continuous feedback.
Sources: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, November 2013 and The New York Times, November 24, 2013