Reading Report | Is HR Missing the Point on Performance?

HR executives are moving away from the traditional performance management and are applying the new
approaches while the problem is there is little evidence to support these new approach. The companies need a
pause before jumping into a hasty performance management redesign and not be too quick to remove a process
corporate leaders don’t like. They should be arguing for the tough improvements that would actually drive
performance, beginning with the use of feedback. There are 6 myths about performance:
1. It’s a problem that employees don’t like formal performance feedback. It is said that if an employee
is dissatisfied with feedback, other performance factors, such as accountability or confidence in performing the
task, plummet. The best system is one that delivers feedback that satisfies which is clear, fair, developmental,
sensitive to employees’ needs, and more.
2. “Bad” feedback is … bad. There’s a belief that negative feedback is bad by the management. Studies
show that positive feedback may lead to a decrease in effort, just as negative feedback may boost one’s desire to
achieve more. Also, receiving only positive feedback keeps people from taking in negative feedback long term.
3. If feedback is good, then frequent feedback is better. While there is evidence that frequent feedback
is good, feedback should not be excessively frequent. too much feedback can be particularly harmful at the early
learning stage.
4. Managers are essential to the performance management process. It is said that source credibility
strongly correlates with perceived accuracy and with a desire to respond, both of which have an impact on
performance. When trust and engagement with managers are low, feedback won’t drive the desired outcomes.
5. Performance gets better with feedback. The manager has to deliver quality feedback that takes into
account a variety of factors (such as task, context, and personal characteristics) and synthesizes them into an
appropriate message.
6. Feedback just happens. When the truth is feedback-rich cultures do not appear out of thin air but
depend on structure, processes, and persistence.
Feedback is a key component in gaining this self-awareness, and self-aware people are more successful. When
the feedback process is well-managed, meaning it is perceived as credible and accurate and is received in the
manner it was intended, it has a significant positive correlation with performance.

There is surely still more evidences for the traditional approach than the new approaches. We can’t deny
the fact that the employees generation of today are different than yesterday. And not only the employees, there is
also huge changes in the industries. But I totally agree with the writer statement that they do not suggest that
companies should keep hanging on the traditional approach, but rather suggest that companies should take a
moment before move into a new design of performance management and not be in a rush.
As for me, it think that new generation of employees does not literally mean that a new approach is
needed. It is still worth the try to find out in what effective ways this traditional approach might bring the team to
the expected performance.
It is actually interesting, how in the digital world, feedback is everything. Feedback is the parameter, the
reason for people to buy or not to buy products, go to certain places, post contents, etc. Every business platforms
have insights for the business runner in the form of visitors/viewers/costumers’ feedbacks. Feedback has power.
But when it comes to work performance, industry leaders considered to walk away from it. Perhaps because in a
work environment, there is this different challanges when it has to be done directly or formally and I think
people in today’s generation could have become more vulnerable than ever before because of the easy access for
online comments has become the door for people to freely (and most of the times are unnecessary and
anounymously) giving feedbacks for each other. Anyone could get bad comments any time now that could lead
to self discouragement or disappointment. In the HR context, as what said in myth number 1, I think the results
from the dissatisfaction with feedback are simply discouragement or feel unmotivated.
It is said that the manager has to deliver quality feedback that takes into account a variety of factors
(such as task, context, and personal characteristics) and synthesizes them into an appropriate message. I agree
that personal characteristics such as culture and personality need to be considered when a manager is about to
deliver a feedback. Thus, it is important for HR managers to notice the main traits of their employees to
successfully design the feedback system. It would lead us to focus on the main traits that this generation of
employees have. In what form of feedback would be the best quality of feedback for them?