Rating or No Rating on Performance Reviews- Which do you think is best for managing performance in organisations? I think this is an interesting topic to explore and I wanted to briefly share trends on the evolvement of performance management systems within organisations.
Over the last 5 years or so, we have seen a number of high-profile companies revising their performance management system and in some cases removing ranking.
- Adobe was one of the forerunners. They removed the annual review cycle in favour of regular check-ins.
- Netflix stopped annual reviews preferring less formal more frequent reviews and feedback.
- Facebook still use ranking but use internal software to give a constant flow of feedback.
- Google separated performance discussion and pay reviews. Managers and employees now work together to decide which peers should give feedback.
- Deloitte and Accenture have abandoned the annual cycle of forced ranking. They’ve replaced this with regular check-ins and faster feedback.
What has emerged are new activities/ techniques/ practices of performance management. In studies conducted with a large number of organisations with ‘world at work’ research indicate organisations shifting towards ongoing feedback, Rating-less performance reviews and Crowd sourced feedback. Below are further details on these topics.
- A vast number of organisations have moved to ongoing feedback. Recognising that the annual appraisal no longer fits with the pace at work as business evolves. Instead, Companies are favouring to meet more frequently to conduct reviews e.g. 4 times per year or monthly.
- Rating-less performance reviews where employees do not receive a numerical or verbal rating (satisfactory, Excellent etc) instead you get text feedback. This is becoming popular.
- Crowd sourced feedback is emerging, but less popular. Crowd sourced feedback is an evolution of 360 feedback. Some Companies find formal 360 appraisal process can be too cumbersome, so using the social media of the company you are able to receive text feedback 24/7 which can then be collated to give an individual feedback from the point of view of who they work with.
