Revaluating performance management is at the apex of almost every growing organization’s
agendas. Earlier, with the abundance of human capital, essentially skilful, organizations had
the bargaining power. For these reasons, the annual review system which emphasized more
on individual accountability was feasible. But in the recent times, with shortage of skilled
labour, a wide gap has formed between the requirement and the talent available, and thus
developing and retaining workforce has become a major concern for growing organizations.
In a recent article, a Deloitte manager described the traditional annual review system as “an
investment of 1.8 million hours across the firm that didn’t fit our business needs anymore.”
(https://hbr.org/2016/10/the-performance-management-revolution). Employers are also
viewing this as a system that lacks collaboration and innovation. In contrast, the mid-year
review system encourages regular interactions between managers and employees, and help in
identifying the barriers in performance and development. With a regular feedback about their
progress on goals, the system provides a larger scope of improvement and a delivery of
efficient output from the employee’s end. It also gives a chance to review actions and
implement changes in approach and team work to get better results.
Major organizations like Dell, have adopted the regular feedback system. In fact innovations
in the prevailing mid review systems are also being implemented like the regular “check in”
system by adobe (http://workwell.unum.com/2016/09/5-performance-review-trends-know/).
Check-ins are essentially shorter, frequent meetings where in organizational goals are
discussed and provide an opportunity for tensile goals. Also with the changing face of
business models, any revision in goals can be translated easily between the teams. Another
example is set by GE’s program which consists of an “insight” feature wherein any
employee is allowed to request or deliver feedback. Such real time feedback provides a
continuous learning opportunity and can act as a powerful motivational tool.
The survey that we conducted, highlighted a major objective of the mid year review program
as a platform to formulate strategies for the remainder period. The common questions that
employees faced in the review sessions were (http://web.viapeople.com/viaPeople-
blog/bid/95171/10-Easy-Ways-to-Improve-the-Mid-Year-Performance-Review) :
1. What goals have you accomplished so far?
2. How has performance related to goals and objectives measured up against the success
criteria agreed upon at the start of the year?
3. What challenges emerged that had an impact on performance or goal
accomplishment?
4. What objectives still need to be accomplished?
5. Which goals are no longer relevant or high priority?
6. Should they be revised or removed from the priority list?
7. What new priorities or projects have surfaced that should be included as new goals?
8. What resources and support will be required to accomplish the goals that remain for
the rest of the year?
9. What obstacles or challenges might hamper performance going forward?
10. What new knowledge, skills and capabilities will be required?
11. How can I be of assistance to ensure success?
Employees also raised concerns about the frequency and time of review. Many said that it
should be in tandem with the company’s business cycle. As in, if a company measures it’s
progress/ profits every quarterly, then reviews should take place quarterly and goals should
be set accordingly. For effective evaluation when asked about any suggestions for we
gathered some meaningful feedbacks:
1. Training and skill building courses to give ample opportunities for
development before evaluating performance
2. Reviewers should be provided training about the way a review should be
conducted. Many complained about the manager’s bias towards employees
being reflected in the reviews, thus hurting an employee’s morale.
3. Employees be not judged on just one time bad performance. History and
records of their performance should be considered before eliminating any
employee
4. Feedback on the effectiveness of evaluation system should be taken
