IN TOUCH : Performance or bias?

At best, performance reviews provide good basis for developing employee skills – but they’re often seen as little more than tedious box-ticking exercise while at worst they just reflect the boss’ bias.
A recent US survey involving close to 6000 employees found that the quality of employee “performance” rather depended on who was doing the reviewing. Minneapolis consultancy Personnel Decisions International (PDI) examined the records of workers who reported to two bosses and discovered that most of those rated as star performers by one boss were rated lower by their second boss 62 percent of the time and much lower 29 percent of the time.
The problem is that bosses tend to rate employees through their own biases and often on the basis of personal liking rather than on objective criteria. While companies can invest lot of time conducting performance assessments, many don’t gain the benefit in terms of targeted talent management decisions, concludes PDI.