I'm responding to the thread dealing with performance appraisal and
employee ranking systems, not to any particular message, although I am
prompted to write by John Constantine's posting in LO16840.
There are lots of angles from which to attack performance appraisal
systems and none to my knowledge from which they can be successfully
defended. It seems that such systems invite attacks. Unfortunately, the
attacks are all too often heated and emotional. As a business person, I
believe performance appraisal systems, especially ranking systems, are a
terrible waste of time, money, and effort. It is my view that the costs
they incur are far greater than any value they deliver. An analysis of
these costs and benefits is spelled out in a paper published last year in
Corporate University Review. A copy of this paper can be found at the URL
listed below:
http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm
The title of that paper was "Don't Redesign Your Company's Performance
Appraisal System, Scrap It!" One company, a credit union on the west
coast, did exactly that. From what they tell me, they don't miss it a
bit. I also placed a paper at the web site listed above titled "Now
What?" which sets forth some ideas about how to manage performance without
a performance appraisal system.
When I was writing the "Scrap It" paper, I was persuaded to delete a
comment that one of my reviewers thought would offend too many readers.
The point that never made it to print was this:
The real purpose of performance appraisal systems is to
shore up an antiquated system of hierarchical authority.
Performance appraisal systems are a vestigial remnant of the waning days
of the industrial era. They came in at the tag end of an era already on
its way out. Those who are fans of performance appraisal systems,
knowingly or not, support what is in the last analysis a style of
management based on coercion and fear. Fortunately, in most of today's
workplaces, these industrial-era antiques are not capable of much coercion
and generate very little fear. For the most part, they generate a lot of
laughter, aimed usually at the HR folks who, for obvious reasons, defend
such systems and at the managers who, for equally obvious reasons,
countenance them.
As regards employee ranking systems, they, too, are a source of much
humor. Even a superficial examination of such practices reveals that they
are not valid, objective, or reliable, and any claims to that effect are
ludicrous and absurd. Frankly, some of the most imaginative work I've
seen done in recent years has been done by those struggling to defend
performance appraisal and employee ranking systems. Their imaginations
seem unfettered.
I was recently asked by a senior executive of a $400 million company what
I thought of its recently-introduced performance appraisal system (the
third in as many years). I replied quite honestly that I thought it was
more or less harmless. This company's latest performance appraisal system
makes use of a software package that contains preloaded text tied to
ratings that are keyed in by supervisors. I offered the thought that the
greatest danger posed by the new system is that the company could wind up
with a lot of performance appraisals that read exactly the same from
person to person. (I can see the attorneys drooling at the prospect of
the fun they might some day have in court with that kind of a system.)
There is in Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" comic strip, a character named
Linus, who is often depicted as holding his security blanket to his face
while sucking his thumb. It appears to me that performance appraisal
systems and employee ranking systems are, for some managers, the
equivalents of Linus's blanket. Moreover, people who cling to them are
not likely to let go until they learn how to manage the performance of
adults in the workplace without having to resort to what, stripped of its
disguise, is nothing more than carrot-and-stick management.
There is, lurking in all this fun discussion of performance appraisal and
employee ranking systems, a problem of monstrous proportions. For
whatever reasons, the leadership of most companies in the United States
(elsewhere, too, if my grasp of the global workplace is close to accurate)
chose to unilaterally sever the employment-in-return-for-loyalty
arrangement that marked much of the paid work arrangements in the world of
work. Downsizing, right-sizing, restructuring, and reengineering were the
code words used to cover such maneuvers. At the same time, demographics
and the changing nature of work itself, are making employers ever more
dependent on employees.
We are on the cusp of a new order of affairs in the world of work and
working, one in which the employee, not the employer, will often have the
upper hand. So far as I can see, most employers don't yet have a clue as
to how they will have to manage in this new world. I can tell you one
thing: performance appraisal and employee ranking systems won't be part
of the equation.
Regards,
Fred Nickols
The Distance Consulting Company
nickols@worldnet.att.net
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm
--Fred Nickols <nickols@worldnet.att.net>
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