A common complaint was that managers did not devote sufficient time to conducting the appraisals and that biases were rampant. Another common complaint was that most managers gave high ratings to all employees and did not bother to properly differentiate and carefully document the performance evaluation of subordinates.

Several old surveys reported that three quarters or more of employees "hated performance appraisals and found them to be useless, increasing tension at work." Today, performance appraisals are standard practice in American businesses and presumably these are used to make key HR decisions, such as distributing merit pay and incentives, screening people for promotions, providing feedback, choosing candidates for layoffs, ensuring equal pay for equal work, and so on