Closing the Gaps with Performance Management
We’re proud to share that Michael Kairios, MHRM, SHRM-CP, a valued member of our team, was recently featured in HBMA RCM Advisor for his thought leadership on performance management. Michael examines the gaps that quietly weaken performance evaluations — credibility, precision, documentation, bias, and visibility — and how closing them turns a dreaded annual exercise into a record that supports employees and holds up when decisions get challenged. This article was originally published on the Healthcare Business Management Association (https://www.hbma.org/).
In many organizations, performance evaluations are viewed as a necessary evil. While recognized as necessary, the process is often dreaded and viewed as an arduous and tedious administrative exercise. This is because traditional performance evaluations often fail to forge real professional development, leaving this common management tool feeling like a waste of time from both managers and employees alike. Faced with time constraints and competing priorities, managers may rely on general or long-standing impressions, soften or avoid difficult feedback, or default to broadly positive ratings to avoid uncomfortable conversations.
It is an understandable approach. But it is also a missed opportunity because when done correctly, performance evaluations can be one of the most effective tools organizations have to support employees and make sound, defensible decisions. Performance evaluations may largely get a bad rap, but that is mostly because they are preceded by poor performance management.
When approached with intention, performance evaluations can do far more than satisfy a procedural requirement. In conjunction with continuous feedback throughout the year, they help create clear, consistent records that support critical business decisions like compensation, promotions, workforce planning, succession planning, professional development and skill building, discipline, and, when necessary, terminations. When performance evaluations are vague, inconsistent, overly subjective, or haphazardly completed as something to check off the to-do list, it diminishes the value of the evaluation itself and actively undermines an employer’s ability to defend their decisions.
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