Performance Appraisal and Merit Pay Systems: the Disasters Multiply

Even the General Accounting Office holds that performance appraisals do not measure the quality of the workforce, but many governments are making them the cornerstone of personnel manage ment and the basis for merit pay awards. These systems cannot work because they are out of step with the central premise of modern Western philosophy, i.e., all knowledge is uncertain. Bosses, therefore, cannot know enough to make detailed appraisals of their subordinates' performance. The resulting atmosphere of fear and threat destroys morale, even among the presumed "winners."