Performance Reviews were historically introduced to give the employer and the employee a fair idea about the kind of work being done by the employee, the target objectives and their progress and to inculcate a feeling of teamwork between different employees who share some common objectives.
However, modern day performance reviews have become solely about numbers, the targets achieved, the targets missed and the resultant effect on pay raise. The broader goals have been lost over the years (Culbert, 2010).
In my opinion, the most serious weakness of performance review process is that it neglects the individual employee strengths, skills, goals, aspirations and the best way in which he or she can contribute to the company. Employees are measured against a fixed and constant yardstick irrespective of the fact that some of them might not even be directly involved in the activities for which they are reviewed.
This process of bucketing employees into various grades, excellent, good, average and poor performers, not only hurts the morale levels of employees and leaves them with a feeling of being unsatisfied with the job, it hurts the company in the long run as well, with lower employee productivity and higher turnover (Culbert, 2008).
Some companies have tried innovative measures such as 360 degree feedback, management by objective or continuous periodic reviews, so that employees can be reviewed by more than one person, thus introducing a higher level of objectivity and conveying to the employee his performance on a regular basis (Carpenter, Bauer & Erdogan, 2010).
Such measures are necessary as in my view, performance reviews cannot be done away with altogether. Such variations from the orthodox boss-dominated performance review mechanism can result in more accurate reviews, helping both the employees and the company.
References
Culbert, S. A. (2008). Get Rid of the Performance Review! The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122426318874844933.
Culbert, S. A. (2010). Yes, Everyone Really Does Hate Performance Reviews. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB127093422486175363,
Carpenter, M., Bauer, T., & Erdogan, B. (2010). Principles of Management. New York, NY : Flat World Knowledge.
