A study completed by Adobe last month found that performance reviews are not having the affect that managers may think. After surveying 1,500 employees in the United States they found that almost 90% have regularly scheduled performance reviews. Of those employees, more than half said that the reviews have little to no impact on how they perform their job and even went so far as to say that the reviews are just a needless HR requirement.

Why don’t employees like performance reviews?

Performance reviews are outdated and a waste of time.

·       Both office workers (64%) and managers (62%) agree that performance reviews are a dated way to manage performance.

·       Most managers (88%) consider preparing for reviews as time consuming and more than half reported to spending more than eight hours in preparation for each employee’s review.

Performance reviews are stressful.

·       More than half of office workers find performance reviews to be stressful (58%), and felt that they put employees in competition with each other (57%).

·       As a result of performance reviews employees have cried (22%), looked at job openings elsewhere (37%), and even quit their jobs (20%).

Office workers dread the reviews so much than more than 4 in 10 would switch jobs to a company that didn’t have formal performance reviews even if their pay stayed the same.  More than half of men said they would switch compared to only 28% of women.  Two out of three managers wish that their organization would change its current performance review process, and more than half of office workers would like their company to get rid of them completely.

How can performance reviews become more effective?

·       Timely feedback - More than half of office workers felt surprised by the feedback they heard, and 80% of workers would rather have feedback in the moment as opposed to aggregated over months.

·       Remove the numbers - For 60% of office workers the ideal review would include qualitative feedback and not numeric ratings.

When traditional performance reviews are eliminated, office workers believe the company will reap the benefits.  Nearly 40% of employees perceive companies without a formal review process to have a collaborative culture and produce higher performing employees, and more than 40% of employees perceive them to be more flexible and have happier employees.

ASE will be hosting its 7^th Annual Compensation and Benefits Conference on May 23^rd where we will be discussing, among many other topics, trends in reviews and recognition programs. In addition, join us in Livonia February 2^nd for “Performance Appraisals: Planning and Conducting.”

Source:  blogs.adobe.com