This piece continues with my series about what to watch for with your current employer to see if they are meeting your career development needs. Again, career development from your perspective and theirs may not be the same. In many cases it is not. Simply put, employers want to know that employees are acquiring skills and knowledge that benefit the organization.
You, however, are more complex. You are seeking life satisfaction that is expressed at many emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and contextual levels. And these days, employees have society’s permission to determine if the employer is working for them, not just the other way around.
A key criterion to examine in organizations is the quality of their performance review procedure. How many times do you hear people say that their employer’s performance reviews are great, fair, spot-on, and “couldn’t be better”? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that.
On the contrary, most employees seem to think that the performance review is poorly handled, hurtful, inefficient, political, or just plain benign and worthless. Whenever humans are being pigeonholed into a structured rating system there are going to be problems. There seems to be a negative correlation between making a performance rubric more “efficient”, in that it is applicable to a diverse population, and keeping it humane by honoring each employee’s individuality.
Even a lot of HR folks cannot stand the process and they are the ones tasked with overseeing implementation. Eight out of ten organizations have a performance rating system and almost three quarters of those tasked with executing them are less than completely satisfied with their models.
So, if employee evaluation methods stink so much, why bother with them? Because an organization should have some means of determining if their employees are providing the quality they are paying for. And in our litigious society, terminating an employee without some appraisal paper trail can put the organization at some legal risk.
Additionally, for an organization to truly assist an employee with their job performance there needs to be a way of measuring current work execution, so that growth areas can be identified, which benefit both the employee and the organization.
Social science, which forms the basis of any employee appraisal model, is after all a collection of soft sciences. Measuring human behavior will always be harder than quantifying tangible objects. But that does not mean that it should not be done. A successful organization requires all participants to perform at optimal levels. How is your workplace facilitating peak performance?
One important thing I would look for is whether the employer thinks of performance review as talent management. Viewing a set of workers as a collection of talent shows a progressive attitude. In this way, management shows they get that aligning employee professional development to the strategic goals of the organization is vital.
A solid transactional relationship would include continuous feedback, not just the once-per-year dreaded review. Clear outcome expectations that are rated with something approaching a 360-degree model rather than a vertical hierarchical management-rank and file system indicates a willingness to assess the whole person on the job.
I would also like to see a lateral job assignment system, one in which there is always an attempt to place an employee in either just the right position or to assign them just the right tasks for which they are best qualified. Perhaps, most importantly, is the training and ethical building of everyone in the organization designed to always help each other be their best? High levels of collegiality, being co-supportive, and community building can be assets for employees and employers alike.
As I close, I feel that there is much more to say about performance reviews. I’ll return to this topic again, because when you look at how a business manages their talent you are looking into the heart of what makes that business tick.
