Should Ekdahl order another round of reviews?
Performance reviews are a critical component of a smoothly run company. Ideally, they allow upper management to objectively evaluate the performance of their employees, and thus decide who should be promoted and who should be let go. This is not the case with the fictional Circale Corporation. Our group believes Ekdahl should not order the managers to do another round of reviews. That being said, the data is not useful as is, and must be refined further.
One way Ekdahl can improve the data is by requiring managers to clearly explain their decisions for outliers. Having managers only provide justification for outliers will be time-efficient and avoid overworking managers. This process ensures that performance evaluations are based on real, observable behaviors rather than relying solely on biased judgment. Another added benefit of this approach is that it can reduce both grade inflation and grade compression by forcing more meaningful distinctions between employees. Overall, requiring additional explanation makes the review process more transparent, consistent, and objectively driven.
Another option to increase the amount of data is peer reviews. Each employee would be asked to evaluate the people in their immediate team using the same criteria as the managers. This data can be used alongside the manager’s initial performance reviews to determine more accurately which employees are causing problems or are less essential. These peer reviews could also reveal employees who do not work well together, and should be moved to a different team. One downside of peer reviews is that they could cause division between some employees, but the benefits would likely outweigh the costs.
Additionally, a common problem when reviewing non-quantitative roles is what criteria to assess an individual on. For this reason, Circale managers should establish a baseline for every employee at the start of the year, or at time of hire. After all, a new hire can’t be expected to perform with the same efficiency as a veteran. These can be quotas or unquantifiable goals like matriculating into a team or establishing presence. This ensures when management reviews employees they have a clear idea of expected performance. Furthermore, when reviewing employees, managers should do so on a semi-regular basis. For example, rather than reviewing all employees at the end of the year over their entire year’s performance, managers review them on a bi-weekly basis. This allows individual brilliance and shortcomings that may be forgotten over the course of the year to shine and be accounted for in bi-weekly reviews. These can then be compiled to become a comprehensive yearly review, ensuring employees are adequately and thoroughly evaluated.
In conclusion, Ekdahl needs to take further action before deciding who to let go. He should not, however, conduct another round of reviews through the managers, as this would be very time consuming and expensive for the company. Instead an approach involving peer reviews and manager explanation for outliers provides an efficient and sustainable solution. Additionally, implementing a system with bi-weekly reviews will establish a baseline that allows future layoffs and promotions to be based on consistent, data-driven observations with reduced bias, ultimately improving the accuracy of decision-making.