what are some negitivities about having a performance review?

Question

For a work assignment I have to find out if there are any negitivities about having a performance review at work?

Answer 1

There are several negatives to performance reviews at work.

First, their usefulness is dubious at best. I have been a manager for 8 years at several large and small companies and have yet to see a performance review system that actually adds value to the organization. Most take too much time, are difficult to administer properly, do not take enough information into account, or are not used for anything other than fulfilling an organizational directive to have a performance review.

Another negative is that often performance reviews are used spitefully by managers to "earmark" employees as underperformers in order to "manage them out" of the organization. Depending on the manager's relationship with an employee, it is very easy to accumulate negative documentation on an employee for the purpose of giving them a poor review.

On the opposite side of that, performance reviews most often do not accurately reflect an individual's positive contributions to an organization. It is often easiest to just take good performers for granted and to not accumulate meaningful documentation of their good performance, meaning a performance review ends up being a collection of anecdotal "stories" instead of containing hard data about how they contributed. Signs of this are comments in the review such as "Works well with others. Helped so-and-so get used to the team." or "Finishes assigned tasks in a timely manner. When asked to work on Team X was always on time and helped out."

Another negative is when companies use performance reviews to divide a small percentage increase to a group. Often a bell-curve approach is taken and the performance review is used by the management team to reward their favorites and keep others from receiving a payout. When a curve is used, it automatically creates an atmosphere of distrust and competition that is most often destructive to the organization. Teamwork is what is needed most in today's businesses and this kind of "me or them" atmosphere does not lend itself to synergy.

Answer 2

Some companies if they are planning on having lay-offs they will use these performance reviews as basis for laying people off. Lower score being the people who get laid off first.

Now while that sounds like a good idea, low score meaning low performance, sometimes the person who is your direct supervisor may not be doing the review, their boss may, and their boss may or may not know your value as an employee.

Answer 3

One negative is that an employee could be blind sided by negative feedback. I don't think that anyone should be surprised by their annual review, but if a manager isn't having open communication with employees, this can happen. I've seen managers who save up mistakes for months before hitting an employee with something that they didn't know about or thought was resolved. It leads to poor morale and distrust. A manager at my company lost his job party due to this. All of his employees went to HR to complain.

Answer 4

Just think about your last one and what you didn't like about it. Or if you haven't had one yet, ask your co-workers what they didn't like about theirs. I'll help with your spelling though. Negativities.