The Future of Performance Evaluations & Feedback Dr. Meriem Doucette California State University, Fullerton

What Is Feedback? “Information about reactions to a person’s performance of a task etc., used as a basis for improvement.” “Helpful information or criticism that is given to someone to say what can be done to improve a performance, product, etc.”

Why Is It Important To Get It Right? Organizations (and their employees) devote a significant amount of time and resources to the development and delivery of feedback. An estimated 825 million work hours are devoted to preparing and conducting annual performance reviews each year in organizations world-wide In one-third of feedback studies, feedback actually resulted in lower performance

Data Surveys from private, public, and non-profit organizations (2,100 respondents) Federal Viewpoint Survey (Annual federal employee survey) Interviews with supervisors and their employees in: Organizations with annual performance reviews Organizations without annual performance reviews

Changing Nature of Work The changing nature of work from algorithmic tasks to heuristic tasks will make feedback more difficult We are becoming more interested in how employees think and approach problems than how they perform a particular task

Changing Nature of Employees By the year 2020, millennials will comprise about 50% of the workforce Millennials have very different communication styles Preferences for Communication (Center for Generational Kinetics): - Text - Email (subject lines matter a lot!) - Social Media - Phone - In- person (they need more context for meetings)

So given all of these changes, what can HR professionals do to help their organizations be more successful?

What Can I Do? Be a “feedback coach” for: - Employees with supervisory responsibilities - Employees without supervisory responsibilities Re-conceptualize the way feedback is utilized in your organization - Especially with annual performance reviews!

Employees with Supervisory Responsibilities One of the most significant management issues is that people tend to manage the way they want to be managed This isn’t effective because people have their own feedback preferences Another problem is the feedback gap Managers and their employees often have very different perspectives about what is actually happening

Feedback Preferences Understanding feedback preferences can help managers more effectively utilize feedback. In the same way we have preferences for many things in our everyday life, we have preferences for feedback Frequency Type (Written, Oral etc.) Formal vs. Informal Duration Source (How well does that person know your work?)

Feedback Preferences Feedback type and perceived feedback frequency can have a dramatic impact on an individual’s response to the feedback they receive.

The Feedback Gap There are often perceptual incongruences about feedback processes between supervisors and their employees 1) Supervisors report giving more feedback than employees report receiving Solution: Consider a feedback log

The Feedback Gap 2) Supervisors overestimate the effect that feedback has on their employee’s performance Solution: Discuss the utility of your feedback with your employees. Is it helpful? Are there specific areas where they need more guidance? 3) This is especially important for professional development feedback, because unsatisfied employees are much more likely to leave the organization Solution: Discuss long term career plans with your employees

Advice For Giving Better Feedback Look for opportunities to give more informal feedback Why? Employees prefer to receive informal feedback Employees want to reduce any “feedback lags” Make sure that your feedback is substantive They did a good job because… How can they improve next time?

Employees Without Supervisory Responsibilities It’s not all about the managers! Employees need to play a role in their own development and become feedback seekers This will require: Trust Time (It won’t happen overnight!) Cultural Changes

The Future of Performance Appraisals How many of you would panic if I told you that in the next 10 years we may no longer have traditional annual performance reviews?

Removing the Annual Performance Review More than 1/3 of U.S. companies have eliminated annual reviews They are being replaced with frequent, informal “check-ins”

Evolution of Traditional Appraisals* Appraisals originated in the U.S. military’s “merit rating” system, created during World War I Traditionally they were used by companies to decide: Who to let go, who to keep, and who to reward The focus was on accountability for past behavior, not development *Information from Harvard Business Review

Evolution of Traditional Appraisals Our conception of employees changed from Theory X to Theory Y (Douglas McGregor) Although concerns about accountability remained, many companies realized Managers hated doing annual reviews Employees dreaded annual reviews The reviews weren’t fulfilling their intended role

The Annual Review Tug- Of-War This shift is not universally accepted There are still serious concerns about how to balance development with accountability This is even more true in the public sector But there are some major problems with traditional reviews…

Problems with Annual Reviews They are too often used as a “feedback crutch” People cannot hear feedback during high stress situations It creates a lag effect (people prefer immediate feedback- especially if it is critical)

Conclusion So when you leave here consider: - How you can help “coach” employees to improve feedback - How you can change annual performance reviews to make them more effective while still maintaining accountability

Questions? Contact Information: mdoucette@fullerton.edu