The ClearGears Response:

You’re right, WAA, there’s a better way. Performance reviews rank among the most dreaded and despised of all workplace customs. They are rarely done well, and seldom offer either the reviewer or the reviewee any satisfaction. At best, they feel like a chore to leadership and an irritating obligation to the employee. Unfortunately, by constraining major feedback to this once-a-year format, these performance review meetings are usually dripping with tension for the employee. Under these conditions, how likely is it that Leadership is going to score honest feedback from its cornered employee? And how likely are you, the put-out employee, to dish? Not very. Also at issue is the lack of transparency in this “performance evaluation” process. You mention, WAA, that you don’t see the point of the exercise. Frankly, it’s up to your management to make its purpose clear. You opine that the grading system isn’t fair. As the authors of One Page Talent Management point out, “When some people say a system is not fair, they often mean it is not equal.”  

ClearGears offers a humane alternative that can offer both parties --employer and employee-- the satisfaction that an annual performance review only pretends toward. How does it work? ClearGears is an online feedback tool for teams. By asking everyone in the company one smart question per day, the informational exchange that an annual “Performance Review” is supposed to generate is actually achieved --bit by no-pressure bit-- throughout the year. With ClearGears, the tension of the once-a-year meeting is diffused, and the anonymity and ease of our approach allows genuine points of view to be shared.

Over time, powerful and useful feedback is generated. That’s ClearGears.

Send your Workplace Rants to rants@cleargears.com. ClearGears keeps all rants anonymous.