Source: theHRDIRECTOR
Date: April 2007 

Since the early 1980s hundreds of studies have been published on performance appraisals. Almost without exception these studies have found faults with the predominant system and methodology used to appraise employees. Here are the top nine most frequently cited drawbacks of appraisals.

1. Rater Bias – extensive evidence that appraisers allow personal feelings, friendships, experiences and prejudices to influence how they complete a person’s appraisal.

2. Rater Bias – appraisers allow political, structural, environmental and other non-personal factors to influence how they conduct appraisals.

3. The lack of training for appraisers (and to some extent employees) has been found to undermine seriously the quality, validity and strategic usefulness of appraisals.

4. Appraisal processes have been found to be dominated by managers and too often lack any real collaborative or equally participative input between manager and employee.

5. Appraisals work poorly and inconsistently when devolved to line managers, many of whom lack the interpersonal disposition HR managers often have. Employees across the organisation receive very different
appraisal experiences, often to everyone’s loss.

6. Appraisal theory translates poorly in practice. The physical manifestation of appraisal systems falls far short of the planning intent.

7. Coaching has been found to be very important in appraising employees and especially in assisting them to improve, yet coaching is very rarely used in appraisal systems.

8. Appraisals are too formal and too infrequent. Appraising works best when it is continuous rather than being seen by everyone as a six monthly ‘event’ to get through.

9. 360 degree feedback is seriously flawed and planning based on 360 systems is on dubious foundations. The evidence is that 360 systems just encourage more subjectivity and bias; there’s no empirical evidence to show they are in any way better than the alternative.