The process of performance management needs to be revamped. Although businesses value reviews and feedback, only 5% of managers and 8% of enterprises are satisfied with the approach of performance review.

It should come as no surprise that HR teams are trying their best and rethinking performance management. To improve the process and to develop their talent, they have leaned on two very essential tools, performance reviews, and continuous feedback.

Reviewing the performance of employees is an integral part of every workplace but, employers are shifting away from annual reviews and getting inclined towards a regular feedback model. Both the models have their benefits and drawbacks that we will discuss while moving forward in this write-up.

Performance reviews and their pros and cons

Performance reviews are one of the common and widely used approaches to performance management. It evaluates employees’ progress based on predetermined goals and serves as a benchmark for promotion and compensation decisions. Though this model is helpful for organizations, it has numerous pros and cons.

Pros

• Performance reviews provide organizations useful insight into the work employees are doing and the value they are bringing to the organization.
• It helps employees to know where they stand in their team and within the organization.
• Performance reviews provide the required structure to the evaluation process and assist in combating biases.

Cons

• Even after being essential for organizations, professionals find it stressful and time-consuming.
• It is directly linked to various important aspects of employee experience, like interpersonal relationships, pay, job security, etc. If the review is not favorable, employees might suffer in different areas of their professional careers.
• The manager is the only person in the performance review process to deliver observation and feedback.

Continuous feedback and its pros and cons

Organizations around the world are showing their interest in continuous feedback because this approach forms a culture of ongoing and honest communication between employees and managers. Although it includes praise and constructive suggestions, it has some pros and cons too.

Pros

• Instead of only focusing on performance metrics, this process discusses employees’ development and growth.
• A performance management framework that includes continuous feedback does not contain room for biases and provides an actionable suggestion that can be implemented immediately.
• We can easily exchange real-time feedback with the help of new technologies and software like entomo, as it gives timely and accurate insights for managers.

Cons

• In this process, the data comes from numerous sources, such as time-tracking systems, testimonials, project management systems, and more.
• Sorting relevant information from such lengthy data takes a lot of time and awareness. Managers find it challenging to understand which information is valuable feedback for employees.
• It is a time-consuming responsibility for managers to encourage and demonstrate healthy feedback.

A brief difference between performance reviews and continuous feedback

	Performance reviews	Continuous feedback
Purpose	Evaluation of previous work.	Correcting for reinforcing the behavior.
Participants	Supervisor(s)	Supervisors, Peers, and team members
Tone of discussion	Formal	Informal/Semi-formal with more formal expectations.
Time	Held on a predetermined time. For example – every six months or one year.	It is a continual process.

Conclusion

Reviews are an essential part of the performance management process but, they should not be the only opportunity for employees to get feedback. The best way to drive an overall performance management program is by bringing real-time feedback and performance reviews together.

Using the right performance management tools can help organizations facilitate continuous conversations related to employee performance and allow managers to provide the required support at the right time.

entomo is a modern performance management software built for the ‘future of work.’ Powering 30mn+ users, it allows ‘enterprises of tomorrow’ to drive performance by aligning goals and nudging actionable insights to manage distributed & remote teams and build a tomorrow-ready workforce. To know more, visit https://webuat.entomo.co/request-demo/