preview

The Push Against Performance Summary

Decent Essays

Critique of The Push Against Performance Reviews by Vauhini Vara
Performance reviews have often been considered a necessary evil of working in the corporate world. They provide a set of standards by which employees can be measured, for use in deciding who gets promoted, who gets the bonus, and who gets put on the dreaded performance improvement plan. Employee evaluations have been used for centuries, across all business sectors…but are they truly improving performance? In the article, The Push Against Performance Reviews, Vauhini Vara posits that performance reviews have outlived their usefulness.
Vara cites several reasons why she believes performance reviews are outdated. The current model of performance reviews, according to Accenture’s …show more content…

(Vara, 2015) Other than linking to a couple of to links that show that we all have biases that could affect evaluations (one of these required additional login, which seems like an unnecessary burden to the reader), Vara does not explain fully how these new evaluation processes are more strongly affected by personal bias than traditional performance reviews, and fails to provide any evidence that this would be the …show more content…

One statement that is particularly troubling is the quote from Kevin Murphy a scientist and expert on performance appraisals from Colorado State University. In an email to the author, Murphy allegedly makes some comments around managers skewing evaluations due to their own incentives, and that "even accurate feedback can feel biased and unfair", which can lead to poor relationships between management and employees. This statement paints current corporate culture with a broad brush, assuming management performs unethically to meet their targets, and that employees assume negative feedback is part of some vendetta against them. None of these statements are backed by anything resembling statistical data or scientific study. These appear to be the opinions of one person who is, apparently, an expert in performance appraisals (a fact which is also not backed by any supporting evidence). Another quote, by yet another expert, this one a professor at UCLA and author of a book titled "Get Rid of the Performance Review!", states that he would get rid of all performance reviews because they are "ineffective". (Vara, 2015) How are they ineffective? This is also never explained...guess you have to read the

Get Access