Why Performance Evaluations Don't Feel "Right"

I'm currently working on performance evaluations for my direct reports. Mind you, I'm not complaining, as annual performance evaluations are part of my job and a "touchstone" by which we can gauge progress. That said, the whole concept of annual performance evaluations just doesn't feel right to me.

For one thing, updating an employee only once a year about how s/he is doing seems to be too large a gap. As I'm someone who continuously lets people know when they've done something that pleases (or displeases) me, the annual performance evaluation is hopefully just a formalism. Nothing that comes up on a performance evaluation should be a surprise to the person being evaluated. If this isn't so, then the manager/supervisor is doing something wrong. Period.

Another reason that the annual performance evaluation doesn't feel right is inherit to its existence, i.e., formalizing feedback to an employee. I find having to use formal language to describe how an employee is doing right or less-than-right very stilted and confining. I'm bothered by the "rating" system that is also inherent to performance evaluations. Although I realize that the ratings are needed to allow people to know where they stand, it feels too much like the old days of being in school and having grade report anxiety.

I'm having some difficulty completing performance evaluations this year, even though there are considerably less for me to do than last time this year. I've thought a bit about this, and realized that it's harder this year because of the instability and uncertainty going on in our organization at this time. The current goings-on in our organization have had sufficient influence on everyone that I don't believe that any of us has been performing our best, or even acting like ourselves, for the last several months. I can only hope that things will pick up as plans for our organization solidify.