1. 1. Have you ever been through a performance appraisal? Do the reactions to appraisal systems described here match your experience? Why or why not?
2. 2. What are some potential advantages of providing employees with more regular developmental feedback than an annual meeting?

As we discussed in the chapter, organizations measure employee performance for a variety of reasons, including determining which employees need training, who is performing well enough to earn a performance reward, and who deserves a promotion. Performance appraisal information can also help determine where problems lie in the company’s overall training and selection systems and defend HR decisions such as firings in court.

In light of these multiple uses, it might surprise you to learn that some companies are moving away from formal appraisal processes. Business scholar Jeffery Pfeffer describes how HR managers at companies like Apple had to bribe managers to complete assigned reviews with free tickets to San Francisco Giants games, and the head of HR at SAS received cheers from employees when he had a bonfire to burn performance appraisal forms. Clearly, appraisals are not popular with the managers asked to perform them. Pfeffer notes that the subjective nature of these reviews is troubling to many managers, leading employees to spend much of their time ingratiating themselves with the boss rather than doing their jobs. Moreover, appraisals put the focus on individual performance rather than on the performance of whole teams. Research conducted by Globoforce found that more than half the 631 survey respondents believed appraisals did not accurately reflect their performance on the job.

So what is the alternative? Zappos now rates employees not on how well they accomplish tasks but rather on how well they embody the company’s core values. This feedback is delivered much more frequently during the year than the traditional annual performance meeting. Nor are the ratings used for disciplinary actions or promotions, though employees who get low scores are invited to take developmental classes to improve the fit between their behavior and the company culture. Apple has also eliminated annual performance reviews as neither timely nor helpful. Other companies have developed performance management software that automates and streamlines a more continuous performance review, allowing employees to track their performance in real time.