Year-round performance appraisal - how do we actually make it happen?

This year has been all about ‘ditching the performance appraisal’, not simply moving away from paper but really changing the culture of your organisation from a once yearly ‘tick box appraisal’ to something more organic, meaningful and ultimately more effective – year-round performance appraisal or performance achievement as we like to call it.  Let’s face it, many of us dread performance appraisal in its current guise but wanting to change the process without throwing the baby out with the bathwater is easier said than done. This blog looks at why this is so challenging and gives some practical guidance on how you can make this change.

So the big names: Accenture; Deloitte; Adobe and even GE, who were particularly famous for their commitment to forced ranking have all ditched the annual appraisal recently in favour of a more ongoing approach. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this means appraisal is dead and HR professionals can put their feet up. Instead, it is more of a change in style from backward looking, once yearly meetings that simplified an employee’s performance down to one performance rating (often ranked against their peers) to more regular employee led check-ins with more of a feedback and development focus.  Having been a HR professional myself for 20 years, I tend to see this as something of the emperor’s new clothes as here at Actus we have always advocated the importance of the 1 to 1 in supporting high performance