Is your appraisal process actually working?

Inside this issue:

• Fix your review cadence
• Match method to culture
• Kill rating bias

Hey HR Folks,

August is when appraisal cycles wrap up or kick off, and it can quietly determine who stays through December.

Business News Daily reports that 85% of employees consider quitting after an unfair review. Most companies realize it only after their best people leave.

The tricky part is that you probably can’t tell who they are yet.

1.Fix your review cadence

Annual-only reviews leave employees guessing for months about where they stand. By the time the formal review happens, half the examples are too old to be useful and the other half were never mentioned at all.

• A few numbers worth sitting with:
• 92% of employees want feedback more often than once a year.
• Only 5% of managers are satisfied with the quality of a purely annual system.
• Managers report spending 210 hours a year on performance reviews, most of it on paperwork instead of conversations.

What to do about it:

• Add a short check-in between the employee and manager every quarter.
• Give feedback within a week of the event it’s about.
• Write down informal feedback conversations, not just formal ones.
• Ask what support the employee needs, not only where they fell short.

See how continuous feedback works →

2.Match your appraisal method to your culture

A rating system built for a different kind of company will fight your culture instead of supporting it. A collaborative team put on a strict individual output-based rating system will stop sharing knowledge and start competing for the same scraps of credit.

Pick based on what you actually run:

• Team-driven culture: Pair 360-degree feedback with peer recognition.
• Goal-heavy roles: Run Management by Objectives instead of a generic rating scale.
• Fast-changing roles: Replace the annual rating with quarterly check-ins.
• Leadership pipeline: Add assessment center exercises before you promote.

Compare appraisal methods →

3.Kill bias before it reaches the rating

Gender bias shows up in performance reviews more often than most managers admit. Women get held to a higher bar to be seen as ready for the next role. Men who don’t project visible initiative get marked down as too passive. Neither has anything to do with actual output.

What actually reduces it:

• Use the same rating criteria for every employee in the same role.
• Write the justification before you assign the score, not after.
• Compare an employee against their own past performance, not their teammates.
• Get a second reviewer to sign off on any rating below the midpoint.

Read the manager’s guide to bias →

Your review audit for this week 👀

• Has this employee already heard this feedback before the formal review?
• Are you using the same criteria you’d use for anyone else in this role?
• If the rating is low, can you point to a specific date it was flagged?
• Does this review end with a next step, or just a number?

A review that surprises the employee has already failed before it started.

Until next time!