How Adobe Got Rid of Traditional Performance Reviews

How Adobe Got Rid of Traditional Performance Reviews
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You may not like Adobe for many reasons but this move is definitely worth a welcome. It is high time companies stop this madness of "annual performance reviews" which really does not mean much.

""The aim is to give people information when they need it rather than months after teachable moments have passed,"

Exactly. You just cannot sit down one fine day (read: end of the year) and discuss the performance for the entire year. Just does not work for human beings like that. We are good and bad on different days. Some days, we are ultra productive, some we just slack off. I would rather have my team/manager talk to me more often about what I am doing right when it actually happens. Same with what I did not do well at the time when it happened. This gives me the opportunity to learn quickly.

The end of year discussion in reality is more like "I do not really know the details of what you did exactly but I know you were ok for the most part. Here is a couple of things you can change, blah blah. You get a satisfactory rating blah. " That's for most of us. A few unlucky ones get the shorter end of the stick "We have to fire the bottom 5% and we thought you are one of those. Not much specifics specially compared to co-workers"

I want real metrics and feedback to be incorporated in my review. Not the end of year survey sent to a few people I choose who will mostly say good things about me (hopefully). By real feedback, I mean the email that my customer sent saying "You saved my life today. You are awesome". This email should be filed/shared with my manager who will then know the background of why the customer said so. stuff like that is real feedback.

The biggest problem I see with performance reviews is the fact that there is no way to compare my work with my co-workers in terms of effectiveness, customer satisfaction and quality delivery. I m not saying that it should become a competition of who is better but there must be a way to tell me that someone else did a better job at xyz while I was really good at abc.

"It also bolsters accountability because managers have far more responsibility for setting employee compensation than under the old system"

This. A 1000 times. It is sickening to hear the same old argument from your direct manager that "sorry if I could, I would give you a better raise. But my hands are tied because I am told so". One huge reason why I quit working fulltime and became a consultant. You pay me what we agreed and I live with it. When my contract rolls, I might ask for a raise and if you decline, it is my choice to stay or move on. Either way, no one is forced into anything.

Couple of others useful links with details on this:

[0] http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/view/story.jhtml?id=534355695&

[1] https://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/tag/performance-review