Take a look at your organization’s review process. Are your performance reviews an annual occurrence or a year-long performance and feedback process? Your performance reviews are probably working well only if your organization successfully:

1) Makes accountability linked to key business drivers part of the performance management system.

 2) Communicates consistently and effectively to all employees while involving them in managing their own performance year-round. 

3) Spends at least as much time developing employees as it does evaluating them.

If that sounds far from what’s happening, take comfort. Most organizations do not engage in effective performance reviews and feedback according to these criteria. Not surprisingly, most employees feel formal annual performance reviews are a waste of time. Key reasons why most performance review sytems are misguided are that:

1) Almost everyone hates performance reviews. Most managers consider performance reviews as one of their most disliked tasks. Employees usually dislike and distrust the process.  

2) Performance reviews overemphasize quantifiable data at the expense of more nuanced factors. Many employees’ most valuable and important contributions to a workplace may not fit into ratings, scores or check boxes that appear on traditional performance reviews. 

3) The existence of annual performance reviews become an excuse for not evaluating performance the rest of the year. When managers don’t give employees ongoing specific, timely, and relevant feedback (both good and bad), they fail to be an effective manager.

In most cases, performance reviews are not only a waste of time but also often can undermine motivation and hamper workplace happiness.

In light of this, for the vast majority of organizations, I suggest you consider moving from having formal performance-management reviews to an alternative that benefits your organization and its employees. Ensure that all employees receive constant feedback and appreciation in person and/or using one of the online tools available so that they know at any given time what they do well and what to improve.

Contact us by emailing info@suggestionguru.com or calling 818-478-8211 to discuss options for achieving your performance management goals with a year-round solution that really works. We’ll talk to you to assess the right fit, which could be anything from Rypple to InputLadder to several others.

If yours is one of the RARE organizations who has the time, money and resources to truly achieve best practices on performance reviews, the following are a list of providers to consider (alphabetical order; none currently singled out for recommended – this list is for your convenience):

Acadia Human Capital Solutions – Acadia Performance Management Tool

Cognology  

Cornerstone Performance Appraisal Software by Cornerstone OnDemand

Element 78 Solutions – Carbon360

EmpXtrack by Saigun Technologies

EPIC Software – EPIC

ETS – Employee Performance Management

Halogen eAppraisal by Halogen Software

Jakoba Software – Employee Performance Management Solution

NuView Systems – NuViewHR

PeopleStreme – Performance Management

Pilat HR Solutions – HR Pulse

Plateau Performance by Plateau Systems

ReviewSNAP by Applied Training Systems

SilkRoad technology – WingSpan

StepStone Solutions – Performance Management

SuccessFactors Performance Review Software by SuccessFactors

Talent Platform by iCIMS

TrakStar Professional by Promantek

Ultimate Software – UltiPro

viaPeople – viaPeople Performance Evaluation

Workstream – Workstream TalentCenter

If after seeing the work that lies ahead in choosing a solution, let alone the challenges of properly implementing it, you want to talk, call us at 818-478-8211 or email info@suggestionguru.com today. If you’ve decided to explore less cumbersome, more flexible solutions, we can get you up and running within days at a fraction of the cost of traditional performance review systems.