HR Made Annual Appraisal Redundant
Death is more appealing than going into an appraisal.
Do you know what makes a department redundant? When its processes are redundant. I'm just saying. But let's focus on the annual appraisal misery employees endure every single year. This process reminds me of those people who spend more and more money on cosmetic surgery, making it worse each time. Stop! It won’t get better! We all hate it. You hate it too, I know!
Funnily enough, HR themselves made this process redundant, and they don't even see it. How? Let's dive into it using the same words and phrases they use to train people on the appraisal and other processes:
Appraisal shouldn't be surprising - Okay, so, if I already know the information, why the process?
We need the review to get feedback - Okay, but you also trained us that feedback must be given in a timely manner, so technically speaking, we already got the feedback, or if we didn't, then we don't follow the feedback process, why don't we fix that? Why the appraisal?
The appraisal should be useful - Okay, but for who? Appraisals are extremely low quality and provide no useful information, nor are they used for their intended purposes (pay rise, promotion, development, redundancy, etc.) I have never in my life seen anyone, let alone HR, looking at these appraisals once they are done. You guys made it redundant by ignoring the hours of work that goes into it. So, let's talk about that! The money spent on the process is not useful for the company as the process does absolutely nothing to the top or the bottom line. Just do the math. My company has 300K employees. Let's say each appraisal takes 3 hours (1 hour for the employee to write notes, 1 hour for the manager and 1 hour to have a chat). Take the average hourly wage of the company and multiply it, and you will have it. We are wasting millions every year on a process with no outcome. Once again, HR is allowed to waste millions! Which other department is allowed to do this???? Appraisals are useful. For who????
Feedback should be unbiased - Okay, but we know that every single human being on this planet is a horribly unreliable rater of others, and we have data to back this up! The idiosyncratic rater effect is real; you judge people based on it! We know that 61% of what is in that appraisal is about the manager and not the employee. Your process is flawed, subjective and, therefore, redundant.
Conduct quarterly reviews - why are we duplicating processes? If you are talking to employees monthly or quarterly, isn't the annual appraisal just one of the quarterly check-ins? Completing another form doesn't make it a new process?
We will use the data to identify talent - Okay, but the definition of talent is natural aptitude or skill, and as far as human beings go, we all have that. So, will your talent calibration and 9/12 box exercise that came about using biased data now exclude talent????? If so, based on what? Comparing employees to employees based on our biased opinion? I see! And don't tell me it is not the case, as I have sat through talent calibration meetings enough time to know how that works. The data we get is who likes who and who.
We are using it for succession planning - The one thing I have NEVER seen during my long career is an actual succession plan. I have sat through meetings after meetings about it but not once seen an actual plan. Please do let me know what it looks like and how that works in real life. Thank you!
We are using the data to allocate bonuses - You already have that data: KPIs, P&L, Employee Satisfaction, etc. Why do you have to put all those into another document?
Can someone please explain to me how HR can get away with processes that make each other redundant? How all these HR professionals out there don't stop for a second and think, Okay, this makes no bloody sense.
At this point, the only legitimate purpose of the process is to keep Debbie from Talent employed. Nothing else. It is only February, you have time to stop the madness.
Once I said this before my appraisal: Death seems more appealing right now than me going into this conversation - despite having no problem and high performance. It is just a waste of time.
And here is the thing, I am not alone feeling this way. Nobody likes or wants this process and it is not useful! Replace it, change it, get rid of it! Ask your employees what would work for them and go from there. Don’t overcomplicate it because it is actually very simple. Just think and you will figure it out.
Or if you cannot, we are always here to help.
Two of our clients just won two HR awards last week for the “Most innovative HR solution” and “Best talent management initiatives” that we designed for them. We are super happy going into the weekend!
If you want to work with us we can help you transform your HR practices. Have a look at the website which is a mess as it is undergoing renovation but you can see what we do.
https://www.thestrengthscompany.com/
Check out my book The Blind Leading the Disengaged where I address more of these nonsense practices.
https://a.co/d/hcCSTGc
Watch this video if you are struggling at work and make sure you don’t end up dead!