Performance Review Lite

The recent mass firing of an entire high school staff in Central Falls, RI is remarkable on a number of levels. And one of these is that there were many teachers fired who had not only a history of loyalty to the school and
community, but had years' worth of positive evaluations or performance reviews.

No one can argue that an organization, whether a school or business, should have a fair and effective means of determining whether or not employees are
working to capacity and serving as a valued resource. A solid employee appraisal
process gives management an opportunity to present positive feedback and to
point out ways in which employee performance may be in need of strengthening.
It's a time when organizational and worker goals can be reviewed and aligned,
and if relevant, obstacles to optimal performance can be identified and
remediated. Through continuous refinement, the performance review process can
add potency to organizational operations.

But what happens when performance reviews are just an empty meaningless management tactic that really holds no operational value or legitimacy? That
appears to have been the case in Central Falls. I had an opportunity lately to
speak with some of the current and soon to be former staff of Central Falls High
School and as would be expected they were disgruntled with what occurred. But
the one single complaint that was heard most was the one concerning the apparent
lack of weight given to performance reviews. How can it be, they rightly ask,
that teachers who had proven their merit through a negotiated performance review
process did not have that process factor into their dismissal decision? All of
the effort placed by administrators into evaluating staff was apparently wasted,
since their work had no bearing when it came to a mass firing.

So why did the school district bother with performance reviews? One of the purposes generally for why they occur is to identify employee training needs.
Given that this school had a history of low functioning students it seems
reasonable to assume that staff training needed to be better concentrated on
improving student achievement. One wonders to what extent this happened. Is it
reasonable to assume that all of the teachers were so incompetent that they were
incapable of addressing the serious educational needs of an admittedly difficult
school population? I think it was easier to just fire everybody rather than to
try building an effective training program.

Another important function of performance reviews is to diagnose weaknesses in order to better address organizational inefficiencies. When an organization
deteriorates to the point that its shortcomings are overwhelming the question
arises as to whether or not the blame lies more with the workforce or the
leadership. It's difficult to see how this school was well administered.
Education is difficult, but it's not particle physics. A more strategic attempt
to use performance reviews as part of a plan to better target and mitigate
organizational imperfections could have been a more humane and
intelligent approach to strengthen the school.

Perhaps the most important reason for having performance reviews is that they provide opportunities for employees and management to have frank and solution
oriented discussions of workplace issues. People don't go into teaching for the
money and prestige, but to try making a difference in their communities and for
the lives of youth. It's one of those jobs that combines art, science, and
passion to produce competence and effectiveness... not unlike many jobs out
there. Members of an organization need to be able to collaborate forcefully on
making quality decisions and solving problems. Institutionalizing means for this
to occur becomes very necessary, particularly for an organization in crisis.

Can you imagine the lack of cooperation and trust between management and rank and file that results in the firing of every employee? This is a case study of
organizational lack of development.