Reviewing the situation
Accenture's new take on reviews is a fudge-fest, says The Villain
Nobody likes performance reviews, do they? Managers loathe the annual effort required, the need to feign an interest in their underlings’ development, and the empty output at the end of the process.
Employees, meanwhile, loathe the annual effort required, their managers’ feigned interest in their development and the empty output at the – yep, you can see where I’m going with this.
The trouble is, despite the universal unpopularity of the performance review process, the fact remains that nobody has thought of anything better to replace it with.
Until now, that is. Global professional services firm Accenture has decided that performance reviews have had their day. Why, we ask. Is it because they’ve finally identified a suitable replacement for them? Well, yes and no.
You see, Accenture has announced that it’s scrapping the review process and isn’t replacing it with very much at all.
The firm, which employs upwards of 300,000 people worldwide, is phasing out reviews and rankings in its 2016 financial year, which begins next month. In their place will be what Accenture describes as “a more fluid system, in which employees receive timely feedback from their managers on an ongoing basis following assignments”.
And there, my friends, is the big ugly flaw in this noble yet doomed idea. Let’s look at that sentence again: ‘fluid’; ‘timely feedback’; ‘ongoing basis’. Or, alternatively: ‘nope’; ‘never’; ‘not going to happen’.
Because, by removing an annual burden and simply ‘replacing’ it with a less structured, year-round one, Accenture is taking a big risk. If managers (and we’re not just talking about Accenture here) can’t summon the energy and enthusiasm required for a once-a-year performance review, you can bet they’ll be even less inclined to do so on a piecemeal basis.
Surely a cack-handed, unpopular process is better than no process at all?
By all means, get rid of reviews and rankings, but don’t do so if it means your entire workforce is then dependent on a system that calls for constant, continuous appraisal. It simply won’t happen.
It’s a nice idea. But it’s also hard to think of any comparable company that has made a success of a similar system over a sustained period of time. Reviews and rankings exist for a number of reasons – getting rid of them in favour of this fudge-fest is a recipe for disaster.
In fact, why not go the whole hog and scrap all aspects of the process altogether. Let your employees develop their own hierarchy without their managers’ input, They’d almost certainly prefer it that way.
Sure, it might get a bit Lord of the Flies, but as long as the canteen stocks the odd pig’s head, you’ll be fine.
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