ALT-6 Should Employee Performance Reviews be Abolished – No
Employee performance reviews serve a number of purposes in the work place, not the least of which is determining an employee's contribution to the company and therefore their continuing value. Performance reviews are a vital part of managing the relationship between the employee and the employer. Far from being abolished, employee performance reviews should occur with more regularity than is typical in most companies today.
Communication between the employee and their employer is critical to ensure an efficient and effective working relationship. Typically communication of this nature is done in informal manners that lack the structure and documentation associated with formal performance reviews. As a result very little information from the communication is recorded, even less is followed up on and less still has consequences associated with it. Performance reviews allow both sides of the equation to formally record these types of communication and attach consequences or rewards to the items discussed.
Perhaps inaccurately named, employee performance reviews are really a two way street allowing the employee to also review the employer. This is a fact lost on many workers in American today who see employee performance evaluations either as a stepping stone to a raise or promotion or the initial step in being pushed out the door in a worst case scenario. While it is true that these types of discussions are used primarily by the employer to evaluate an employee's performance over a given period of time, the employee also has an opportunity to evaluate the employer over the same period of time. Both parties have the chance to voice concerns regarding the work place environment, allowing for constructive criticism or praise as is warranted by either party.
Another aspect of employee evaluations that is often overlooked is the career advancement mapping that such activities allow. While an employee's performance in their current role is being evaluated so too is their candidacy for other roles and positions which have opened up in the company since their last evaluation. Potentially this could be major career advancing opportunities the employee may not have been aware of. Conversely this is an opportunity for the employee to express his or her interest in expanding their skill set or diversifying their work experience.
Regardless of what industry you work in or what company you are employed by the ultimate goal of your company is to be successful if not profitable. The only way to ensure the success of any company is by evaluating the performance of its employees and operational policies. During this process it is important for the employee to also be evaluating the employer. Suggestions for improving operation efficiency, input on how the company is treating its employees and feedback from a customer facing perspective are all useful bits of information that should be fed back into the company by the employee during a time of evaluation. While the company is trying to determine the employee's worth to the company so too is the employee trying to determine if this is a company work working for.
There are very few instances in which additional information is neither welcome nor helpful to anyone, employer or employee alike. Employee performance evaluations are an excellent opportunity to exchange very helpful information which may not typically be discussed under normal circumstances. It is the responsibility of the employer and employee to make productive use of the information derived from these discussion and take appropriate actions to improve deficiencies and reward outstanding efforts. Employee performance evaluations should be done no less then on a quarterly basis in order to ensure open lines of communications between both sides in the matter.
