In today's corporate world, many U.S. employers are less involved in performance management, but this could lead to workplace setbacks. An efficient performance management program helps an employer realize the full potential of its employees, and when that happens, it impacts all areas of the business, says Donna Parrey, senior research analyst at the Institute for Corporate Productivity, a network of corporations focused on improving workplace productivity in Seattle.

While most employers have performance management programs in place, the administrative tasks involved have become so bothersome that many employers are not using performance management to its full advantage, Parrey says. Instead, many are simply going through the motions of performance management.

This is particularly true when it comes to measuring the success of performance management programs, Parrey says. Rather than using reviews gathered during the performance management process to help employees achieve individual goals, many employers are measuring success by the number of completed evaluations. With that approach, an employee's potential is left untapped, and corporate goals suffer.