Samuel Culbert Get Rid Of The Performance Analysis

In a corporate environment, performance evaluation is an inevitable as well as perennial discussion point that often evokes mixed reactions. This post discusses about the maladies of the existing performance evaluation systems and the alternative methods that could help organizations in the light of Samuel Culbert’s article “Get Rid of the Performance Review!”

Performance in Organizational Setting

Defining performance is a vital part of performance management system and hence many performance evaluation research studies have strived towards defining performance. In effect, performance needs to be viewed as the combined system of competency as employee’s individual performance measurement and outcome as organization performance measurement,

In addition, performance evaluation aids to identify employee training as well as development requirements, and facilitates alignment of employee and organization goals, among other objectives (“Performance Evaluation,” n.d.).

The rightly done performance evaluation process ensures benefits such as improving employee productivity, motivation as well as commitment; enables an employee to set goals as well objectives; fulfills satisfaction of the fundamental human need for recognition; helps to identify scope for process improvement; and aids to find out employee development possibilities (“Performance Evaluation,” n.d.).

Culbert’s Article on Existing Performance Evaluation

Culbert in his article “Get Rid of the Performance Review!” critically analyses the existing performance review systems in corporate companies and details the maladies and gaps that severely impact the performance review mechanism.

He also comes up with an alternative system, which is called performance preview system in the place of performance review system. His article that has appeared in the Wall Street Journal has stirred many debates among corporate professionals, including human resource executives and managers.

Maladies of existing Performance Evaluation

And, he lists out the strengths of his alternative system as well to highlight his case.

Two Different People & Two Different Mind-sets

While the boss or manager would like to discuss about performance improvement the employee might be interested in compensation and career path. Moreover, while the boss tries to point out the gaps, the reviewed employee will naturally tend to reject the charges. Due to these diverging thought processes, the discussion will not be fruitful at the end (Culbert, 2008).

Performance and Pay Mismatch Pay will be determined by the market conditions and organization’s budget, rather than based on the employee’s performance. Even in a positive review, employee is expected to show his or her gratitude than an accurate assessment (Culbert, 2008).

Subjectivity than Objectivity Though termed objective, most of the performance reviews end up as subjective. This can be proved by the fact that when employees switch managers, they receive different evaluations. Moreover, the managers often base their reviews on feedbacks anonymously received from other employees (Culbert, 2008).

Issues with Standard