Are P45’s heading for performance reviews?

Love them or hate them, the annual review season is on it’s way!

HR love them (most of the time), employees dread them and middle management see them as an unnecessary process. With a damaged reputation, what will happen to our performance reviews and are they overdue their P45’s?

As a HR Manager I think that when used in addition to one to one’s; appraisals/performance reviews/PDR’s can work really well, the manager knows the capabilities of the team and identifies the development areas to keep the employee motivated, engaged and focussed.

With increasing operational performance pressure, is it feasible to accommodate these processes especially for those on the frontline of the business and more importantly can you achieve the right balance?

When conducted properly, these processes can prevent miscommunications, strengthen a workforce and identify development areas. All crucial to the smooth running of any business, so why are more choosing to make the performance appraisal redundant?

Employees and line manager’s alike say that the process can be inaccurate, with manager’s favouring some employees, some choosing to avoid them altogether through fear of receiving feedback.

There are many pro’s and con’s to any process and this one certainly divides opinion, I agree with Peter Cheese’s statement at a recent CIPD event “the working world is changing” and it’s important that workplaces continue to evolve in order to keep up with the increased importance of customer loyalty and competitive markets.

The key is to increase regular communications by introducing one to one meetings on a monthly basis, they don’t need to be lengthy, they can just be short checks in’s. This simple step can help make the employee feel more comfortable to demonstrate honesty resulting in a more productive meeting in a less formal manner. Regular, constructive feedback is proven to be highly effective so give it a try!

Another contributing factor is the feeling of being labelled by means of performance ratings, these should be eliminated as they only demoralise and demotivate employees so recently my department introduced new forms to the business which focusses on team work and is designed to strengthen relationships.

Last but not least I would consider short term goals; whilst we all like to focus on the bigger picture, smaller, short term goals can be more accurate and effectively contribute to the business objectives as opposed to having to go back and re-do work which could have been perfected the first time around.