Are performance reviews stifling business development?

While they're a necessary part of business development, performance reviews are often dreaded by managers and employees alike. 

For those in charge, performance reviews can add to an already high work load. Employees on the other hand, have to deal with the extra stress these procedures can bring. The result? Both parties lose time that could be better spent in other areas of the business. 

Deloitte has chosen to lead the charge in this regard, with its recent abolition of bi-annual performance reviews likely to create a mini-revolution for professional development as other companies look to re-evaluate their procedures. 

According to a July 29 article in SmartCompany, Deloitte Australia's Head of People and Performance Alec Bashinsky cites changing demands within the modern workforce as one of the key reasons for the new process. 

In particular, Mr Bashinsky says that millennials want instantaneous feedback on their performance, a task that is much easier now with the amount of data businesses have their hands on. To these employees, an annual performance review is unnecessary when managers have instant access to the information they need. 

Mr Bashinsky believes that the organisations new framework of check-up meetings and brief quarterly reviews is setting a new standard worldwide. 

"It's one thing to scrap reviews, it's another to implement a whole other system of doing it," he explains. "It's really building on employee strengths, rather than [focusing on what] they're not doing."

While Deloitte might be setting the trend on this side of the world, the idea follows on from one that US software provider Adobe implemented back in 2012. Adobe also adopted the check-in system, creating a less daunting environment for managers and employees when it came to review season. 

As with Deloitte, Adobe found that performance reviews were distracting people in the workplace and weren't providing tangible returns on the time and effort expended.