Performance Review Software: Making a Difficult Job Easier or Making Things Worse?

PERFORMANCE REVIEW SOFTWARE: MAKING A DIFFICULT JOB EASIER OR MAKING THINGS WORSE?

Many managers dread appraising the performance of worker and either put it off or do it poorly. However, everyone wants and deserves to know how they are doing. A growing number of companies are offering technology that promises to solve this problem. Software can now not only make the rating task paperless and as easy as point and click, but also generating feedback and performance improvement suggestions can be entirely automated. For example, performaWork is a company that offers a software package, called eWorkbench, that allows 3600 appraisal by bosses, peers, subordinates, and even customers. The software is designed to evaluate employees on goals tied to the organization’s objectives. The software can calculate the extent to which each employee has contributed to those objectives and, therefore, to the organization’s bottom line. The program provides an electronic means for aligning everyone with the same mission and making sure everyone is working toward the same organizational goals. KnowledgePoint is another company that offers an electronic appraisal tool. The knowledgePoint software is web based and focuses on goals and competencies that can be generic or customized. In addition, depending on rating levels, the software generates a narrative performance summary to hand to the worker that describes performance levels on competencies or goals and suggests actions the worker should take to improve performance.

Performance Review Software: Making a Difficult Job Easier or Making Thing Worse?

Critical Thinking Questions

1. What advantages might there be to using the types of software just described for evaluating the performance of workers? Are there rational advantages, such as speed? What about political advantages, such as a manager being able to blame a poor performance review on the software?

The advantages to using this type of software include the ease...