Management | Why there's never enough time (to do performance properly)

Clear Review CEO Stuart Hearn looks at the age-old question of manager capacity in the context of performance management.

I wouldn’t say that it’s a common refrain, but it’s certainly not an unusual one. I’ve heard many variations on the theme, but it usually boils down to the same basic point: “Managers don’t have time to do check-ins”.

When I was pulling together the ideas and thinking that would become Clear Review, I approached it with the knowledge that the annual appraisal - even amongst all its other faults - is a time sink. It takes a disproportionate amount of time to do. It can paralyse departments for weeks, in some cases, as managers cajole and browbeat people into giving 360-degree views on team members, then write their own comments, then get it all signed off, then file it with HR. And then have the meeting, write up the notes from that and agree it with the employee in question. Deloitte estimates that their own annual appraisal process ate up 2 million man-hours per year.

I appreciate that, on the face of it, there is a challenging conversation to be had here. “You know that thing everyone hates? The thing which has one virtue and one virtue alone: it happens only once a year? Well, good news: now you have to do it monthly.”