Why performance review should not be neglected

Neha Gupta

Milestones. That is merely a word but our entire lives are attuned to them. Birthdays, anniversaries, achievements, life events all point to milestones and how we evolve as human beings.

The very existence of work-life, too, is based on objectives that one needs to achieve. It is the alignment of our own personal aspirations and goals aligning with a work set up that motivates us to pursue a career. This makes performance measurement an important tool to assess the growth of an employee.

Most organisations have a performance management framework which rates employees at least once a year, to an entire spectrum where people get constant feedback against live and dynamic goals and an evolved performance management model that helps them understand how they are  faring against organisation’s priorities and evolving as a person. An interesting debate, however, has been going on over the past few years about whether performance should be rated, and should those ratings be shared with employees? 

There must be a minimum level of competency and skill that should be defined for conducting performance reviews and for receiving feedback for managers and employees,  respectively. 

A consistent feedback mechanism is the backbone of a robust performance management process whether it is annual or quarterly, rating based or not, MBO based or not. 

Feedback is meaningful and has the right impact when it is timely and given with candour and respect. And that leads to greater acceptance of one’s performance assessment at the time of a performance evaluation. 

Employees who report receiving recognition and praise within the past seven days show increased productivity, get higher scores from customers, and have better safety records. They’re just more engaged at work.

Performance evaluation and the structure around it is here to stay. It is now time though for organisations to prioritise creating a performance culture by improving the quality of goals, performance discussions, the governance around the process and the skills of the team than worry about changing the structure of the process itself every now and then. 

— The writer is India HR Head, Dunnhumby