Recognize This! – More feedback, freely given, in a timely and relevant way makes the performance management process more useful for all participants as well as the company as a whole.

It’s that time of year again. The time HR Pros, managers and employees alike dread. The annual performance review. Fraught with anxiety on all sides, no one likes the annual performance review process. There is simply too much tied up into it for all parties.

• HR needs the results to justify merit increases (once again a paltry average 3% increase, barely 1% above the cost of living in the U.S.).
• Managers feel like they have to justify their headcount and ensure none of their employees appear in the bottom 10% of the performance bell curve, or else how would that reflect on their own managerial skills?
• Employees feel this is their one chance at getting good feedback from their manager, the results of which will end up in their permanent file.

Who could possibly ever enjoy this process? What’s the benefit to the organisation of putting everyone through this every year, anyway? Nearly everyone agrees the annual performance review in its existing form needs to be kicked to the kerb. But what should replace it?

My CEO, Eric Mosley, has written a new book that lays out that path – The Crowdsourced Performance Review: How Social Recognition Transforms Performance Management. Think of this as a 360-degree review without all the drawbacks, hassles and concerns. (To be released next week…)

Eric will be presenting the key constructs of his book on a webinar November 14, at 1:00 pm, Eastern (10:00 am, Pacific; 18:00 GMT). In “How Social Recognition Transforms Traditional Performance Management,” Eric will discuss how crowdsourcing feedback can fix the employee performance review. He’ll debunk the myths surrounding the traditional review and share how to build a smarter performance management system that:

• Uses social recognition to inject new life into the troubled traditional performance review
• Offers managers new insight into performance, based on crowdsourced data
• Provides a vision for 2020 that realigns performance management with top level business objectives

Be sure to register for the webinar, or leave me a comment on this post to receive your free copy of the eBook when it is released next week.