As a business operations manager at a B.C. educational institution, Manpreet, 30, hears a common refrain whenever she asks her team of supervisors to submit their annual performance reviews of staff.
"They'll say, 'Oh, we're too busy. We'll get it to you, we'll get it to you,' " says Manpreet, who requested that her last name be withheld. "Then, two months go by ... and they'll say, 'Oh, we've done them. We just haven't signed off on them yet.' "
Before long, everyone forgets about the performance appraisals, even though the institution deems them mandatory.
Now, heading into the tail end of the year, many companies are conducting performance reviews, which bring no small amount of anxiety to both staff and managers. It's no wonder those tasked with giving the assessments find sly ways to dodge or subvert the often dreaded process.
Nita, a human-resources co-ordinator for aB.C. mining firm, says supervisors at her company frequently complain that it's too time-consuming to assess their staff.
Since the firm sets no deadlines for performance reviews, supervisors get away with submitting them sporadically, while some stall indefinitely, says Nita, who also asked not to reveal her full name.
"Sometimes a department may not have done one for two years," she says.
Their procrastination can come back to haunt them, however, if an employee needs to be disciplined or fired.
"If you don't have a review, we can say, 'How are we going to prove this is an ongoing situation if you haven't sat down and talked to them and we don't have any paperwork?' "
At the office of a large Vancouver-based resource company where Alex works, performance reviews are not used to measure employees' work so much as for ammunition in what he describes as the yearly "inevitable bun fight" - a vitriolic scramble among managers to secure a portion of the company's fixed budget for bonuses and pay raises.
Managers inflate the job performances of their staff to ensure their department receives its share of the pot, he says.
"In my experience, there has never been more than five minutes' thought given to an actual performance review," says Alex, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But sometimes there is a good brainstorm on how to effectively make it sound like the company couldn't function without you."
Alex's own manager has fibbed on his behalf on official evaluations, he says, omitting his shortcomings and giving him top marks, which he knows he doesn't deserve.
"Because I work closely with my manager day to day, I get plenty of feedback. But the official performance-review system offers me very little," he says.
Ask most managers whether performance reviews are worth doing, however, and the majority will say yes, says Brian Bemmels, professor of organizational behaviour and human resources at University of British Columbia's school of business.
Done properly, the process gives managers and employees a chance to reflect on their development, determining what areas of their jobs they do well, where they can improve and what further training they might need, Prof. Bemmels says.
Yet a lot of companies don't have an effective staff appraisal system, and employees tend to focus on the negative consequences of the process, fearing that a bad assessment might cost them a pay raise or a promotion. That dread adds further tension to the exercise, Prof. Bemmels says.
As a result, most managers don't conduct performance reviews willingly.
"They have to be coerced into doing it or provided the right incentives," he says.
Aside from being too busy, common reasons why managers loathe giving performance reviews are that they don't understand the methods of evaluation, or they find them overcomplicated or ineffective, Prof. Bemmels says.
Studies from as early as the 1980s, for instance, have established that performance assessments based on grades or rating scales are poor measures of job-related behaviours and outcomes, as they tend only to measure an employee's traits instead of their work achievements or lack thereof, he says. Yet companies continue to use grade-based assessments because they're cheap, easy to develop and simple to use.
Employees and managers who understand the limits of such measures might find they have less incentive to take performance appraisals seriously.
Companies need to tailor their review systems with an understanding of what it takes to do a particular job well, and how that can be adequately measured, Prof. Bemmels says.
To further ease the pain of the performance review period, companies need to make sure managers are well trained to carry them out, says workplace expert Randall Craig, president of Pinetree Advisors and author of the bestselling book Personal Balance Sheet.
A manager who has been trained to conduct performance reviews will probably be more comfortable giving them, and will know how to react to defensive employees, he says.
In addition, Mr. Craig says, top-level managers need to hold middle management accountable for carrying out performance reviews by setting firm deadlines and assessing supervisors themselves on how well they assess their staff.
At her office, Manpreet recognizes a need to improve accountability, since even her own boss tries to duck out of the whole process.
"For me to get my own performance review ... I have to keep bugging [my director]," Manpreet says. "It is very frustrating, because if she's not doing them with the managers, then the managers aren't going to do them with their employees, and it just doesn't get done."
