Performance management is a cycle, not a meeting
Step 1 / 4·Why everyone dislikes the annual review
0/4 steps done
Learning objectives — after this module you will:
- Explain why traditional performance reviews usually fail
- Learn the four stages of the performance management cycle
- Distinguish the line manager's role from HR's
Why everyone dislikes the annual review
Understand the root problem with traditional appraisal.
Surveys across organisations keep finding the same thing: employees and managers alike see annual reviews as time-consuming and low-value. The cause isn't a bad form — it's a basic design flaw: cramming ALL performance management into one meeting a year.
The consequences are predictable: managers only remember the last few months (recency bias), employees are blindsided because it's the first feedback they've heard, and nobody can fix anything because the year is over.
The 'no surprises' rule
This is the simplest quality test for a performance system: if the employee is SURPRISED by their rating, the system has failed — however good the form looks. Everything said in the review should already have been said before.
Key takeaway: Annual reviews fail because a whole year is crammed into one meeting — the quality test is 'no surprises'.