Time to Review Workplace Reviews?

[groovedaddy]

After years of studying the ill effects of workplace stress, psychologists are turning their attention to its causes. Along with the usual suspects — long hours, bad bosses, office bullies — they have identified some surprising ones.

The focus on workplace health comes as worker satisfaction in the United States appears to be at an all-time low. The Conference Board reported recently that just 45 percent of workers are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61 percent in 1987. The findings, based on a survey of 5,000 households, show that the decline goes well beyond concerns about job security. Employees are unhappy about the design of their jobs, the health of their organizations and the quality of their managers.

A number of studies have documented the health toll of workplace stress, showing that unhappy workers are at higher risk for heart problems and depression, among other things. This month, Danish researchers reported on a 15-year study of 12,000 nurses finding that nurses struggling with excessive work pressures had double the risk for a heart attack. And a British study tracking 6,000 workers for 11 years found that those who regularly worked more than 10 hours a day had a 60 percent higher risk for heart disease than those who put in 7 hours.

Samuel A. Culbert, a clinical psychologist who teaches at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, says too many people work in a “toxic” environment, and the title of his new book (from Hachette) throws a spotlight on one of the culprits: “Get Rid of the Performance Review!”

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/time-to-review-workplace-reviews/?th&emc=th

[supernova]

1. Hear! Hear! This is no need for

the "annual performance review," especially if you have a job that is essentially unchanging from year to year. If you're the office Admin for example, what are you going to say? You sent 50% better letters than last year? You answered calls 20% more courteously?

The only useful thing I can see it used for is if you have a job where production values need to be set every year. Then the question is just "did you meet your targets or not?"

Intangibles like rapport with other people really can't be graded and shouldn't be.

[HillbillyBob]

2. Profit uber alles, MBAs who don't know anything but how to screw

you over.....
MBAs are one of the biggest mistakes that the corpses every dreamt up.

I realise there were MBAs before the 80s but damn they don't know how an operation works only how to milk it instead of making it work and profit that way they cut 'expenses' and then sell off the assets and call that profit when it took years or decades to build a company.

[supernova]

3. I think the problem is

most people in "management" really don't have people skills to properly coach and inspire people. They're hired because they knew somebody, or they're a technocrat and out selling the latest industry doohickeys that sr management thinks might be "the next big thing."

Like the person in the article said, it's so fraught with problems even under the best circumstances, it's best not to do it at all.