Why Traditional Performance Rating Systems Are Failing Today’s Workforce

Recently an Uber Eats driver in Tasmania lost his job over a 74% approval rating. Yesterday, I did an interview with Tony Moclair of News Talk 3AW 693 about the fairness of that decision and whether our rating systems have gone too far.

My take?

• Is 74% approval rating grounds for deactivation? Although these rating systems appear to be skewed higher because anything under a 90 not great, I think people should be dismissed for not performing their jobs.

• Having said that, most employee performance systems are extremely flawed. They were built in a different century for a different workforce and certainly different leadership skills. Most times these systems are too little, too late, and, as I describe in my book, “𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴”, they are irrelevant if you’re having structured one-to-one conversations with your employees on a monthly basis.

• I appreciate some rating systems. When we moved to North Qld 3 years ago and had to find a whole slate of new service providers, my partner and I relied heavily on ratings systems.

• But have we gone overboard? I think we have – it’s become a bit like the American tipping culture – just less expensive.

I’d love to hear your thoughs.