Public Sector Performance Management: The Shift From Annual Performance Review To Regular Feedback

Feedback is an integral part of performance management system. It is about accessing the work that needs to be done and providing opportunities for performance improvement and professional development. Consequently, many public sector organizations aims to promote a high-performing culture and aspire to rely on continuous feedback as a significant part of their performance management system. Nonetheless, they fail to apply the continuous performance feedback and stick to the old year-end evaluation. The year-end one time overall performance evaluation is late and less powerful to result in learning and performance improvement. For example, feedback given on December for January's performance will have less corrective power. Hence, this review is intended to shade light on the need to shift from the old annual performance evaluation to regular performance feedback in public sector organizations. Accordingly, pertinent theoretical and empirical works were consulted. Many private sector organizations are switching from single annual evaluation to a culture of continuous conversations with meaningful performance feedback while most public sector organizations are still using the old annual performance management approach. Hence, public sector organizations need to shift to continuous performance feedback with regular check-ins for it allow managers and job owners quickly tackle issues before they become problems and fosters a forward-looking conversation by emphasizing continued feedback that is in the moment and frequent. It also help to create a culture where people are comfortable giving feedback up, down, and across an organization.