Workers are as divided as their employers on the value of performance reviews.
Responses from employees might of course be linked to how they typically do on annual assessments. A new survey of 1,600 employees from Eagle Hill Consulting, a management and human capital consulting firm, found that just over half (54 percent) were satisfied with their last performance review. A larger portion — 65 percent — believed that their most recent appraisal was an accurate reflection of their performance.
But only 27 percent of respondents said they were motivated by their last review. The good news is that that's more than the percentage that were de-motivated (10 percent) or angry (5 percent). But an even larger portion (29 percent) said they were indifferent to the results.
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How the company uses annual reviews likely has a lot to do with how workers feel about them. Just under half (49 percent) of employees say that their employer uses reviews to determine promotions and 62 percent say reviews help establish clear career development goals.
The most common purpose of performance reviews, according to employees, is to benchmark a worker's performance (78 percent) and to make sure that the employee and manager are on the same track in terms of goals and priorities (77 percent).
Annual reviews of employee performance and satisfaction have been attacked by some business experts as an inaccurate and inefficient means of understanding what is going on in the workplace. Particularly in light of electronic communications that make it easy to communicate regularly with large numbers of workers, some argue that employers would be better-served by smaller, more frequent assessments.
The problem is, many companies don't have a culture in which managers regularly engage with employees about their performance and thoughts on the company's future. According to the survey, only half do. Those working at companies in which communication with management is rare will be hesitant to endorse scrapping the annual reviews, for fear that it might cut out the only interaction they have with superiors.
"Our research sheds light on why employees are wary to move away from annual performance reviews," said Melissa Jezior, CEO of Eagle Hill. "Generally, employees feel the system works, and perhaps may worry they won't get feedback needed for career growth or they will not have input on salaries and bonuses."
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