Ever had that gut sinking feeling when entering the room for a performance review? Even worse, have you been a leader having to give a negative performance review?

Annual performance evaluations have been an established practice in most large organisations. However, after numerous research studies have shown that in most cases, neither managers nor employees benefit from the process, as it is currently practiced.

At the basis of this discontent is the destructive impact it has on the relationship between managers and employees. Nor are they an effective basis upon which to base remuneration.

New methods are proving better in communication, less burdensome in administration and focus more on positive growth and development, rather than compliance to some arbitrary standard.

Humans are social creatives and need interactions with others, and to a degree as sense of social status amongst our peers. Performance reviews have been regarded as ‘numbering’ methods, reducing individuals to ranking scores appraised against predefined, and often outdated, models as to how an individual should perform in a given role.

Today, the focus is on ‘getting to know’ employees through regular interactions, rather than just getting to know their work output through scheduled reviews. The key focus is now on future goals and actions, rather than past performance. This is a critical difference that changes both the mindset of the employee and the relationship they have with their manager. According to Harvard Business Review, these conversations should occur at least quarterly.

As a bonus, reducing the admin burden resulted in huge savings of time and money.

Author: Gail La Grouw. Insight Mastery Program Director, and Strategic Performance Consultant for Coded Vision Ltd.