The annual performance appraisal. That part of the year when managers get to tell their staff what they really think about them, and staff have to suck up the criticism while imagining a sign flashing over their heads: “No bonus for you!”
Polls of managers and staff consistently rank annual PAs — as they are often referred to — as one of the more unpleasant activities in people management. It is no wonder why. Who likes giving and receiving negative feedback, especially when the recipient’s pay, promotion and pride are at stake?
Herein lie the problems with the old fashioned PA.
First, all this feedback (both positive and negative) has been kept in storage for the whole year, only to be unloaded on staff like a pail of cold water in an Ice Bucket Challenge. No one likes to be told that they have been doing 20 things wrong for the past 12 months. (“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” they might ask.)
Second, what do normal human beings do when confronted with criticism that could impact their salary or job prospects? Naturally, they will be defensive and challenge the assessment. Is it any wonder that managers tend to tiptoe around the hard truths and sugar-coat their “constructive feedback”?
How does this contribute to the key objective of conducting the PA: Improved performance at the workplace?
There is a better way.
Introducing Continuous Feedback, a systematic way of giving and receiving developmental feedback throughout the year.
Developmental feedback aims to help employees improve their performance without grading them.
This early intervention alerts employees to their shortcomings early so that they can take corrective action before it impacts their performance rating. It breeds a high performance culture without workers feeling judged all the time.
Many progressive workplaces do encourage such a culture of “feedback as a gift”. However, implementing this across all levels of staff can be difficult without a system in place.
Learn Anchor HRMS provides a solution. Staff can use the Request Feedback and Give Feedback functions to seek and receive feedback throughout the year. For example, immediately after a presentation to a customer.
Learn Anchor aggregates the feedback and presents it to the employee, together with their colleagues’ recommendations for follow-up actions to improve their performance.
This can all be monitored by managers and the HR department to inform the design of better training and coaching programmes.
Give organisational performance a boost with continuous feedback. Try out Learn Anchor for free today:
