The abolishment of performance appraisals: Parkview's story

Traditional performance appraisals, with their emphasis on individual (versus systemic or organizational) performance, are thought to undermine efforts to implement a total quality management or continuous quality improvement strategy.

A team charged in 1989 with the mission of improving the performance evaluation process finally determined it was simply not possible to improve a system so fundamentally flawed and recommended eliminating it. As an interim step, directors were told to dispense with scores and simply provide feedback to employees. A model for doing this was later adopted as the template for the annual feedback meeting Parkview eventually developed.

The breakthrough, in 1992, came in realizing that an annual meeting should focus not on evaluating the employees but rather on identifying processes and systems in need of improvement.

Managers and employees alike view APOP as an improvement over the old performance appraisals. One director sees APOP as a way of finding out what is going on in her department and how she can help. Another director finds that APOP not only helps him recognize the needs of good employees but also helps him to work constructively with employees having problems.

Seventy-two percent of the directors have a highly favorable opinion of APOP; employees will be surveyed soon. Additional training in the APOP philosophy and process for first-line supervisors and follow-up training for leaders will be provided.