When Not to Have Performance Reviews–Tip of the Week

Are you kidding?  You’re not suggesting that I consider ditching something that’s as old as hiring and firing?  Yep.

Don’t have performance reviews if:

–They aren’t honest about employees’ deficiencies and designed to help them improve their performance.

–They aren’t given timely.

–They aren’t consistently given to all employees.

–They don’t cover the entire review period (not just the last couple of months).

–They don’t contain goals for the next review period.

–You don’t follow up with an employee within a reasonable period of time to see if deficiencies are being corrected and goals are being accomplished.

–You give each of your employees a review that pretty much says the same thing.

–You don’t have a meaningful conversation with the employee about the review; in other words, you don’t just give an employee a copy of the review and leave the room.

It would be better to have no performance performance reviews and take your chances with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Department of Labor, a state employment agency, a judge or a jury than to have  performance reviews that don’t meet the above principles.  If you don’t follow these principles, you’re likely to end up  with a bunch of reviews that say all of your employees are perfectly “satisfactory.”  Those reviews are meaningless and legally damning.