The performance review. Most people dread them. Some people look forward to them. The intent of performance reviews is worthwhile. It's an opportunity to provide feedback to employees and discuss areas of growth. Sometimes though, employees and managers just go through the motions making performance reviews a pain in the neck rather than a meaningful discussion. We're half-way through the year, which is a time when employees and managers usually "check-in" with each other, so for this week's Talent and HR News Weekly Roundup, we're sharing the latest thinking around performance reviews. 

1) Employee Performance Review: Productive or Destructive? from Findmyshift

"Why do employees overwhelmingly dread their annual performance review with the boss? Quite often, this discussion is tied to the decision of whether an employee will receive a pay raise. What's more, many of the points a manager makes about an employee can feel personal, even subjective, and not reflective of his or her true performance over a year's time. It's up to managers to make the dialogue in the annual performance review as employee-friendly as possible, even though the odds are already stacked against both manager and employee. A different kind of process altogether can benefit employees and empower managers to feel more successful in appraising employee performance."

2) It's Time to Kill the Performance Review from NY Magazine

"During my first performance review at my first-ever job, my manager told me that the ratings system operated on a five-point scale — except, it kind of didn’t. No one, she told me, was ever rated at one, and it was also rare for employees to receive twos. But no one ever got fives, either, meaning that most employees were considered average to just-above-average, collecting a bunch of threes and fours. This, as it turns out, is pretty much the way most performance appraisals end up working, according to a new review of the literature on the subject. Most are nothing more than an “administrative ritual,” and they often end up discouraging employees instead of motivating them to perform better, the authors on that new paper write. And this is why, they argue, it is high time for the annual review process to die."

3) 4 Tactics to Make Performance Reviews Less Painful from Business 2 Community

"Performance reviews can be rough. They are enough to make a confident manager feel anxious and competent employees doubt their contributions. Nobody, and I really mean nobody, looks forward to performance reviews. While some of those feelings are inevitable, there are a few things you can do to make the process a little less painful. We’ve gathered five steps to take during your next performance reviews to establish a more comfortable and effective experience for all involved."

4) Companies Shifting to 'Regular Feedback' from Annual Appraisals from The Economic Times

"Employees' annual performance reviews are increasingly becoming a thing of the past, as top firms are shifting away from the traditional method to a "regular feedback", says a survey. According to a study by the Top Employers Institute published today, employers are shifting away from annual performance reviews and instead moving towards more regular feedback. "We are definitely on the verge of a paradigm shift in the way we look at Performance Management," the Top Employers Institute CEO David Plink said adding performance management has evolved from an annual event with rigid objectives to a transparent process of continuous dialogue."

Lexi Gordon is a Lead Consultant for exaqueo, a workforce consultancy that helps organizations build their cultures, employer brands and talent strategies. Contact exaqueo to learn more about how we can help you build a workforce that’s aligned with your company culture and develop an employer brand that will allow your business to scale and grow the right way.