My intuition (fed with years of management science & motivational theory) says that adapting the conventional annual review notion as Atlassian recently announced they’re doing) won’t make a significant difference in employee morale or motivation.
It’s still good to see someone noting that their GE-inspired system of “pay for performance” is utterly demotivating and more-or-less a waste of time.
Instead of an inspiring discussion about how to enhance people’s performance, the reviews caused disruptions, anxiety and de-motivated team members and managers. Also, even though our model was extremely lean and simple, the time investment was significant.
(from the article)
They’re not utterly overhauling their system, just reducing compensation-to-review-score dependence and attempting to create a more continuous feedback cycle. But they’re doing it consciously and publicly. That’s encouraging – and I hope a great example for others.