Everything can always be better?

Research shows that performance appraisals/functional reviews achieve nothing except a lot of frustration. So why do we still conduct them?

Performance development, performance management, development conversation, ambition conversation, the good conversation, assessment conversation, performance conversation, competence management....and there are even more variants. In the Dutch business world, many conversations are held between employee and manager, in many variants. This is often accompanied by a nice form. Would you like to fill in what is not going well. This is usually disguised by filling in your 'points for improvement'. Submitting a list of areas for improvement every year is not very motivating, of course. The points of improvement put on it are usually no surprise. And that is not because they have already been discussed at length during the year. They are often the points that recur every year and which the employee himself knows are not his best points.

A few years back, I worked in a hospital myself. Once a year there was an annual review. And all the years in a row, the feedback was: if you don't agree with something, it can be seen immediately. After year after year of this feedback, I knew by now. Was it something I could improve? Probably yes. Did I see the need to do so? Frankly, no. In fact, it was actually helping me. It was, as they call it, just the nature of the beast.

Year after year the same feedback or every year something else that is not right. It works very demotivating. Professor and management expert Paul Boselie stated as recently as 2023 on the Speechmakers programme that he does not see the point of performance appraisals. The annual conversation has no positive contribution to the employee's well-being or organisational performance. In contrast, a regular conversation so that the working relationship is maintained does have a positive effect on motivation, commitment and mutual trust.

And what if, in doing so, we now also looked at talent? At what someone enjoys? What energises and inspires someone and makes them feel like the captain of their own ship? Wouldn't that give us much more?
So from now on, start the conversation with: How are you doing? Where did you get energy? And then look together at what work then really suits the employee.