Why corporate America is ditching annual performance reviews

Everything you need to know, in four paragraphs

Are annual reviews on the way out?
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The best insights and commentary, from all perspectives, in four paragraphs:

One of the biggest companies in the world is doing its employees "an enormous favor," said Lillian Cunningham at The Washington Post. The massive consulting firm Accenture is eliminating annual performance reviews and rankings for its 330,000 employees worldwide. The once-a-year review process is just too time-consuming and expensive, Accenture CEO Pierre Nanterme said in an interview, and "the outcome is not great." Instead, the firm will implement "a more fluid system" of timely feedback based on managers' discretion. Accenture isn't the only major company to "ditch dreaded annual reviews," said Mandi Woodruff at Yahoo Finance. Microsoft got rid of its annual ranking system in 2013; Gap now asks managers to have monthly conversations with employees. Both Google and Yahoo have a quarterly check-in system based on measurable, public goals set by employees.

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