Top Challenges Managers Face During Performance Reviews - And How To Fix Them

Performance reviews are supposed to guide employees, recognize effort, and align individual goals with company growth. In practice, they often feel like a high-stakes scramble that satisfies policy but changes very little. The good news: most failure modes are predictable—and preventable. This guide outlines the biggest pitfalls managers face and gives you practical, repeatable systems to run fair, evidence-based, and motivating reviews.

If you want the broader research context: traditional annual reviews are widely criticized for inconsistency and low impact, which is why many organizations are moving toward more continuous, evidence-driven approaches (see Harvard Business Review’s overview of the performance-management shift). But you don’t need a wholesale reinvention to get real gains. You need clarity, cadence, and a tight feedback loop between review insights and day-to-day work.

Turn performance and potential into clear decisions about compensation, growth, and role fit—using shared standards, verifiable evidence, and actionable next steps. Anything that doesn’t serve that goal is noise.

1. The Foundations: Criteria, Evidence, Cadence

Before we get into specific challenges, lock down three basics:

• Criteria: A role scorecard that defines outcomes (what success looks like), competencies (skills/behaviors), and values alignment. Map each to observable indicators.
• Evidence: A lightweight process to collect artifacts over time (metrics, projects shipped, peer input, customer feedback). No evidence, no judgment.
• Cadence: Quarterly check-ins beat annual “surprises.” Reviews become a synthesis of what you’ve already discussed—not an ambush.

For practical definitions and templates, SHRM’s performance-management guidance is a solid starting point.

2. Challenge 1 — Lack of Clear Evaluation Criteria

Symptoms: Vague ratings (“meets expectations”), inconsistent judgments across teams, employees guessing at what matters.

Root cause: No measurable standards or the standards focus on effort, not outcomes.

Fixes that work:

• Role Scorecards: For each role level, define:
  • 3–5 key outcomes (e.g., “Reduce checkout error rate from 1.4% → <0.5% by Q3”).
  • Competencies (e.g., “Writes maintainable code; reviews unblock peers within 24 hours”).
  • Behavioral indicators per competency at each performance level (Unsatisfactory → Exceptional).
• BARS (Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales): Replace “Good communicator” with concrete anchors:
  • 3/5: Presents options with trade-offs; answers stakeholder questions directly.
  • 5/5: Anticipates objections; secures cross-functional alignment with documented decisions.
• Goal Frameworks: Use OKRs or SMART outcomes. Output (hours, tickets closed) is not impact. Impact is the needle the business cares about.

Manager script:
“Here’s your role scorecard. Between now and next review, these are the three outcomes we’ll judge success by. We’ll review progress bi-weekly and course-correct early.”

3. Challenge 2 — Time Constraints

Symptoms: Rushed prep, generic comments, copy-paste feedback, reviews slipping into “checkbox” mode.

Root cause: Managers try to reconstruct a year from memory in one week.

Fixes that work:

• 10-Minute Weekly Log: Every Friday, jot 3 bullets:
  1. Notable outcomes shipped (with links/metrics).
  2. Growth moments (new skills, stretch work).
  3. Blockers/risks to escalate.
     These notes become your review evidence cache.
• Rhythms Over Marathons: 25-minute bi-weekly 1:1s with a standing agenda: wins → metrics → risks → support needed. Summarize decisions in 3–5 sentences and save them. That’s 80% of review prep done continuously.
• Reusable Templates: Standardize your review doc: Summary → Evidence → Ratings with anchors → Strengths → 2–3 Development Goals → 90-Day Plan.

Frequent, specific feedback correlates with higher engagement and performance; Gallup has published extensive data on this.

4. Challenge 3 — Bias and Subjectivity

Symptoms: “Recency” dominates; confident communicators get higher ratings than quiet high-performers; favoritism allegations.

Root cause: Human brains shortcut. Unstructured processes amplify bias.

Fixes that work:

• Name the Biases:
  • Recency: Overweighting last 4–6 weeks.
  • Halo/Horns: One strength/issue colors everything.
  • Similarity/Affinity: Higher ratings for people like us.
  • Proximity: In-office folks get more credit than remote peers.
• Countermeasures:
  • Evidence Packets: For each rating, attach 2–3 artifacts (dashboards, PRs, client notes). No artifact? Reconsider the rating.
  • Calibration Sessions: Managers review anonymized summaries across teams. Focus on consistency of standards, not negotiating scores.
  • Blind Peer Inputs: Short, structured prompts: “Describe a time in the last quarter when X’s work unblocked you. Link?” Avoid open-ended popularity contests.
  • Rating Anchors: Use the BARS you defined. Anchor to behavior, not personality.

Manager script:
“I’m assigning ‘Strong’ for stakeholder management based on A, B, C artifacts. If you think I’m over- or under-weighting any of these, let’s discuss what’s missing.”

5. Challenge 4 — Difficult Conversations

Symptoms: Managers pull punches to “stay positive” or, worse, drop vague criticisms that don’t help.

Root cause: Low skill and low practice with constructive candor.

Fixes that work:

• SBI-B Model (Situation, Behavior, Impact, + Bridge):
  • Situation: “In the Q2 pricing meeting…”
  • Behavior: “…you interrupted the finance lead twice.”
  • Impact: “…we missed two key risk callouts and had to reconvene.”
  • Bridge: “…Let’s try a hand-raise rule and I’ll back you if you feel cut off.”
• Ask–Tell–Ask Loop:
  • Ask: “How do you think the meeting went?”
  • Tell: “Here’s what I observed and why it matters…”
  • Ask: “What will you try next time? What support do you need?”
• Pre-Commit With Notes: Share a brief agenda 48 hours in advance: Topics, evidence links, decisions needed. Surprises escalate defensiveness.

Manager script:
“My goal is growth, not gotchas. We’ll stick to specifics and leave with two commitments each.”

6. Challenge 5 — Tracking Progress Over Time

Symptoms: Reviews overweight the last project; early-year wins vanish; development goals are forgotten.

Root cause: Evidence isn’t captured continuously and isn’t centralized.

Fixes that work:

• Artifact First: Require links in the review doc: PRs/commits, dashboards, customer quotes, docs, shipped demos. If it’s not linkable or describable concretely, it’s not evidence.
• Quarterly Milestones: Break annual goals into 90-day chunks with leading indicators (e.g., “reduce mean incident time-to-resolve to <45 min,” tracked weekly).
• Peer Pulse: Two short peer inputs per quarter (structured, not open-ended). Keep the prompt consistent to show trends.
• Single Source of Truth: Store notes, goals, and artifacts in one place so you’re not hunting at review time.

7. Challenge 6 — Ensuring Reviews Lead to Action

Symptoms: Great conversation, then… nothing changes. Same gaps next cycle.

Root cause: No concrete plan, no owner, no follow-up.

Fixes that work:

• From Feedback to Plan: Convert each development theme into a SMART goal with a 90-day horizon. Tie it to a business outcome.
  • Example: “Within 90 days, lead two cross-team RFCs to decision using our template; score ≥4/5 on stakeholder clarity in follow-up survey.”
• Two Commitments Rule: End every review with (1) the employee’s development commitment and (2) the manager’s support commitment (resources, introductions, shadowing opportunities).
• Follow-Through Cadence: Add the two commitments to your 1:1 doc. Review progress bi-weekly. If it’s not on the agenda, it won’t happen.
• Visibility: Summarize review outcomes in a brief, shareable note (with the employee’s consent). Transparency drives accountability.

8. Special Cases Managers Trip Over (And How to Handle Them)

• High Effort, Low Impact: Acknowledge grind, but rate outcomes. Redirect effort to higher-leverage work with clear metrics.
• Brilliant Jerk: Document the cost (attrition risk, rework, slowed throughput). Make collaboration a first-class criterion with anchors; coach hard and set a line.
• Remote vs. In-Office: Standardize evidence capture to avoid proximity bias. Favor written artifacts and documented decisions.
• Role Ambiguity: If the role’s outcomes aren’t clear, fix the job design before judging the person. You can’t grade against a moving target.

9. How Technology Can Help (Without Turning People Into Forms)

To overcome these challenges, many businesses are turning to performance reviews software like Zelt. The point isn’t to “automate people,” it’s to automate the grunt work so managers can focus on judgment and coaching.

What to look for:

• Structured Templates & Anchors: Embed your role scorecards, BARS, and rating definitions so every manager uses the same yardstick.
• Continuous Evidence Capture: One-click links to projects, commits, metrics, and customer notes; light prompts after major milestones.
• Bias Guards: Side-by-side calibration views, anonymized peer input, and “evidence required” gates before a rating is locked.
• Goals → Cadence Integration: Development goals roll directly into 1:1 agendas with automated reminders; owners and due dates are visible.
• Analytics: Team-level heatmaps of strengths/gaps, promotion-readiness signals, and trend lines across cycles.

Bottom line: Tools should raise the floor on consistency, compress admin time, and make evidence hard to ignore—without bloating the process.

12. A 90-Day Implementation Plan (Copy/Paste This)

Days 1–15: Define Standards

• Draft role scorecards for your top 5 roles/levels.
• Write BARS for 5 core competencies (e.g., problem solving, communication, ownership, collaboration, execution).
• Pick 3–5 business-critical outcomes per role with measurable targets.

Days 16–30: Stand Up the Cadence

• Start bi-weekly 1:1s with a shared notes doc.
• Adopt the 10-minute Friday evidence log.
• Pilot peer input with two structured prompts.

Days 31–45: Train Managers

• 60-minute workshop on SBI-B, Ask–Tell–Ask, and bias countermeasures.
• Dry-run a calibration session using anonymized, evidence-anchored summaries.

Days 46–60: Tooling

• Configure your performance reviews software templates: scorecards, BARS, review forms, evidence fields, and reminder cadence.
• Import existing goals and link to artifacts.

Days 61–90: Run the Cycle

• Conduct reviews using the new templates and evidence packs.
• Hold calibration; document rationale for any score adjustments.
• Convert feedback to 90-day development plans with two commitments (employee + manager).
• Schedule follow-ups in 1:1s; track progress visibly.

10. Metrics That Prove It’s Working

• Prep Time per Review: Target <60 minutes because evidence is already organized.
• % Reviews with Linked Evidence: Aim for ≥90%.
• Bias Signals: Variance of ratings across comparable roles/teams; reduce spread over time after calibration.
• Goal Completion Rate (90-Day Plans): ≥70% of development goals completed or intentionally revised.
• Engagement/Retention Leading Indicators: Post-review pulse on “I understand what’s expected of me” and “I receive actionable feedback.” (Gallup’s research connects clarity and frequent feedback to higher engagement and performance.)³

11. Common Pitfalls (Don’t Do These)

• Rating the Person, Not the Work: Keep judgments tied to behavior and outcomes.
• Surprise Feedback: If it’s new in the review, you’ve waited too long. Surface issues in real time.
• Overloading Forms: If managers spend more time filling fields than coaching, you’ve lost the plot.
• Ignoring the Follow-Through: A review without a 90-day plan is theater.

Conclusion

Performance reviews will always involve judgment, and judgment is hard. But hard doesn’t have to mean messy. With clear criteria, continuous evidence, bias countermeasures, and a tight feedback-to-action loop, reviews become a lever for growth—not a ritual.

When managers use structured methods and supportive tools like performance reviews software, they deliver fair, specific, and motivating feedback that actually changes behavior and improves business results. Start small: define your scorecards, institute the weekly evidence log, run one clean calibration. The compound interest on that discipline shows up faster than you think.