Regular followers of Clear Review will know that we have a few issues, so to speak, with annual appraisals. We won’t weary you with all the details now — it’s covered in depth and detail here, here and here. Suffice is to say that appraisals take forever, are widely resented and give you little of value. That’s why we’re here.
Fifty seekers of truth joined us in Kings Cross for Clear Review’s first live event: Annual appraisals are dead: What’s next? They came buoyed by the prospect of live talks from Perry Timms, Stuart Hearn and Sam Netherwood. They came to meet like-minded HR thinkers and leaders and hear the live issues debated by a sparkling panel. They may possibly have come for a drink afterwards.
First up, we had Perry Timms, whose long experience and high profile in the HR industry speaks for him. Perry gave us a fast-paced and wide-ranging talk that touched on Agile principles, the importance of people over mechanisms and processes and the importance of looking to the environment — rather than blaming individuals — if you’re trying to foster a culture of high performance.
Our quote of the afternoon: “Performance management represents your culture. If your PM is mechanistic and impersonal, so are you.”
Sam Netherwood, of data analytics consultancy Mudano, was up next. Sam has a background in behavioural change and we worked with him on a cultural transformation project at the examination awarding body AQA. He is, frankly, one of the sharpest minds we know. He touched on an absolute host of influences, from behavioural psychology to Gandhi, and shared some of the principles and practices that delivered continuous performance management at AQA.
Our quote of the afternoon: “Create experiences that resonate and test them in real life. No one ever changed the world with a Powerpoint presentation.”
We still had time for a brief workshop session, getting our audience up to discuss questions in small groups and then feeding their thoughts back into the panel for wider discussion. For that, we have to give special thanks to Sarah Lee-Boone of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Janis Stylianou of THB Group, who added their wisdom and experience to the panel. In an atmosphere of enthusiasm and excitement around the possibilities of continuous performance management, it’s good to be reminded of the commercial considerations and some of the realities of running an HR department day-to-day.
Thanks to our speakers for their thinking, enthusiasm and ideas, and to everyone who attended for their energy and candour. This was our very first event and there will undoubtedly be more to come. In the meantime, we have some fantastic eBooks that take you through the journey to continuous performance management. And, of course, if you’ve been inspired to learn more about how Clear Review can help you put an end to the dreaded annual appraisal and move to continuous performance development, get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.