What is the basic premise of the article?

What did the company do right and how could the company have acted more effectively with regard to Performance Management?

Adobe Introduced Continuous performance Management in Place of Performance Appraisals

Adobe was the forerunner of change when they abandoned annual performance appraisals back in 2012. They felt that while they were forging ahead and evolving as a company, their performance management system was archaic and ineffective. It was a waste of time and had, ultimately become a box-ticking exercise. Adobe estimated annual appraisals consumed 80,000 management hours each year. This was the equivalent of nearly forty full-time employees working year-round. Clearly, a change was needed.

Adobe replaced annual appraisals with regular one-on-one check-ins, supported by frequent feedbackboth positive and constructive. There are no performance ratingsor rankings and they allow different parts of the organisation to determine how frequently they should hold check-in conversations, based on their work cycles. Now that forced ranking has been abolished, employees at Adobe are assessed based on how well they meet their goals. Managers are also trained on the nuances of giving and receiving feedback.

The result has been a marked increase in employee engagement, with voluntary turnover decreasing by 30% since check-ins were introduced. This makes Adobe a performance management case study we should all be aware of.