Chapter 1
Reproducing a blog by Dr. John Sullivan on top 50 problems people face with performance appraisals
http://drjohnsullivan.com/performance-appraisal-the-most-dreaded-hr-process-a-list-of-the- top-50-problems/
(Some) 90 percent of performance appraisal processes are inadequate." – Salary.com survey
In conversations with HR leaders and employees, the talent management process that suffers from the most disdain around the world is the performance appraisal. It‘s one of the few processes that even the owners of the process dread.
If everyone hates it, but it still gets done nearly everywhere, you might assume some government regulation requires it, but in this case there is no such regulation. The only legal justification pertains to showing just cause for termination and other disciplinary action.
While that is the justification used, no matter how strong their design, most performance appraisals are executed so poorly that they may actually harm a legal case. (A major labor law firm found that among a random sample of performance appraisals conducted in a retail environment, a majority would damage the employer‘s case versus support it.)
Most ignore the shortcomings of performance appraisals and suffer through it, but that‘s hard to do once you realize how incredibly expensive the process is. In 1996, Frederick Nickols estimated the cost at just under $2,000 per employee. My estimate, which includes a managers preparation time, employee time, HR processing time, opportunity costs, and advances in technology, still puts the process cost at over $2,500 per employee per year. If you choose to take on the challenge of revising your performance appraisal process, the first step is to fully understand the potential problems associated with it.
Here are the Top 50 problems with performance appraisals (grouped into six categories):