October 20, 2022

Why Employee Reviews Matter

Employee review

Business Trends

What’s your stance on employee performance reviews?

A recent McKinsey survey found that most CEO’s don’t find the appraisal process useful for identifying top performers, and more than half of employees don’t feel like their managers get their reviews right. This pervasive attitude has resulted in managers performing cursory reviews without feedback or stopping reviews altogether.

Why This Matters

Employee retention is at the top of most manager’s minds these days, as finding and keeping quality staff is becoming more difficult. In an article for Harvard Business Review, writer Frank Cespedes articulates that feedback and coaching are crucial for professional growth and development, and this is often discussed through properly-delivered employee performance reviews.

He says the purpose of an employee performance review is to give an “accurate and actionable evaluation of performance, and then provide development of that person’s skills in line with job tasks.” Research shows that employees become high performers when:

  • Specific areas of improvement are identified, and
  • The employee is given the chance to practice those skills with fair performance feedback

Next Step

Click to read the HBR article to learn how to guide a great performance review.