Why Does Most Performance Management, or Appraisal, Fail?

It's true that many companies implement performance management and performance appraisal in ways that virtually guarantee that it will fail. And so that's often what happens. There are probably ten or fifteen reasons why it fails far more often that it should. Some have to do with mindset, and some have to do with techniques used.

Here are a few.

• believing performance management is about filling out forms
• focusing on blaming employees rather than helping employees and working together
• focusing on the past, rather than anticipating problems and focusing on the present or future
• doing performance appraisals TO employees rather than with them
• spending too much time appraising, and not enough time during the year planning and communicating
• making it a once a year event
• using poor and misleading tools, forms and softwqare
• expecting performance management to achieve too many different and often competing purposes and functions

See also: White Paper: A Critical Look At Performance Management - Why Doesn't It Work (This is a relatively short booklet outlining the most common reasons for failure, essential if you want to avoid problems)