Hating on Performance Reviews—and the Old Switcheroo
“Study finds that basically every single person hates performance reviews.”
With a headline like that, it’s no wonder a recent Washington Post article continues to get attention. The problem is it’s not true—not even according to the research the article cites as its source.
The research was conducted by psychologists at Kansas State University, Eastern Kentucky University and Texas A&M University, who “looked into how people respond to negative feedback they receive in a performance review,” according to the article. It also says the researchers “asked 234 staffers at a large southwestern university to rate their feelings about a performance review they received three months earlier.”
Based on those facts, it’s a little difficult to understand how the Washington Post can justify the headline it ran. Okay, it’s very difficult to understand. But we definitely understand why they ran it: it’s a sure-fire attention grabber. It’s like a lot of recent headlines that hate on performance reviews.
Although it seems fairly obvious, we’d like to point out that there’s a significant gap between everyone hating performance reviews and a few statistics showing 234 individuals at one university generally don’t like getting negative feedback during a review (who does?) and some portion also disliking a recent review.
If this research does highlight anything it’s not that everyone despises performance reviews. It’s that many managers continue to do a less than stellar job of conducting reviews. If they truly want to help drive employee performance effectively, managers need to learn to be more constructive, guiding and mentoring—even when they’re providing negative feedback.
The Washington Post article is really just the latest in a long line of articles that pull the old headline switcheroo. Dozens of pundits and bloggers have written headlines like, “It’s Time To Eliminate Performance Reviews,” and then offered advice on how to conduct performance reviews properly. Clearly, it’s a popular attention-getting device.
Even so, performance reviews continue to be a necessary and effective tool for helping our employees grow, develop and even excel. But we need to conduct reviews appropriately and in ways that reinforce our employees’ commitment to doing the best work they can.
To read more about performance review best practices and how to rethink your appraisal process, download our white paper, From Dread to Moving Ahead – Taking the Pain Out of Performance Management.