Dive Brief:

• The "let's dump our annual performance review" movement got a new, prestigious member this week, as IBM is the latest major employer to drop their old system in favor of a new one, according to Fortune.
• Big Blue's decade-old performance system, dubbed Personal Business Commitments, is being replaced by an alternative that offers "more opportunity to shift employee goals throughout the year" and has a frequent feedback aspect, Fortune reports.
• Things frequently change during a year's time, Diane Gherson, the CHRO at IBM, told Fortune. Under the old system, employees and their managers would often engage in “irrelevant discussion” come December. Of course, the goals under discussion were created back in January.

Dive Insight:

IBM followed an employee-centric path to adopting its new review process, as HR crowdsourced ideasfrom 380,000 workers across 170 countries using its internal social media platform, Fortune reports. It received 75,000 views and 2,000 employee comments.

There were some surprises. For example, the workforce rejected the idea of self-assessment proposed by HR. Another idea that was scrapped was comparative ranking, where managers would meet and compare their charges. More frequent feedback was requested.

Checkpoint, the new IBM review app that launches Monday, will focus on shorter-term goals and the desired feedback frequency (about quarterly). When the year closes, managers will assess whether employees have exceeded or achieved expectations across five key indicators, while seeking improvement ideas. Gherson told Fortune that rather than a single score under the old review process, the new one works across five scores and is expected to deliver a "much richer, more balanced discussion.”