Don’t Take the Easy Way Out in Performance Reviews—If You’re Evaluating People, Put in the Real Work.
Read the original article (in Japanese):
評価制度は「平等」ではなく「公平」であるべき理由【ビジネス最前線】 | サライ.jp｜小学館の雑誌『サライ』公式サイト
Preface｜The Era Where “High Sales = High Performance” Is Over
In performance evaluation, no system is perfectly just. But when a company stops striving for justice in its evaluation, organizational decline becomes inevitable.
The fundamental issue highlighted in the original article is that relying on simple indicators—such as sales—ignores contextual differences: market difficulty, customer conditions, inherited account quality, and internal resourcing. It is equivalent to evaluating a pitcher solely on “wins,” ignoring offense support, defense quality, ballpark dimensions, or opponent strength.
In business, too:
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high churn rate,
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destructive teamwork,
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lack of reproducibility,
are all forms of “value leakage” that raw sales numbers cannot capture.
This absence of evaluation philosophy is precisely what weakens corporate HR systems—and entire organizations.
This article explores why fairness matters, why HR must define value, what MLB’s metrics teach us, and how companies can build their own “WAR.”
In short, the strength of a company depends on whether HR can design its evaluation standards.
Chapter 1｜Why Companies That Confuse Equality with Fairness Always Fail
“Equal evaluation” is easy. Anyone can do it. But equality ignores reality—and weakens organizations.
“Fair evaluation” means establishing comparability while accounting for the different conditions each employee faces. Even within the same sales department, the contextual differences are enormous.
▼ Differences that must be accounted for
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Role differences | New acquisition vs. account maintenance / Frontline vs. backend |
| Difficulty differences | Market competitiveness, pricing pressure, brand advantage |
| Condition differences | State of inherited customers, resource availability |
| KDI (Process) differences | Visit frequency, internal coordination, relationship-building |
Judging only by sales is like comparing runners by time while ignoring that some ran uphill and others downhill.
True fairness requires structural correction of these differences.
Chapter 2｜Why Assigning Young Employees to Recruitment Is a Sign of Weakness
Some companies assign new graduates or young employees to recruiting because they are “close in age” or can “relate.” But recruitment is not emotional customer service—it is the company’s future capital allocation.
Recruitment requires:
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understanding business strategy
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defining talent requirements
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assessing job-role alignment
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predicting long-term value
It is not a task for someone chosen because they seem friendly.
This leads straight to “emotional hiring,” which undermines organizational strength.
A strong company is one that evaluates talent by value, not “vibe.”
Chapter 3｜Only Companies Whose HR Can Create Evaluation Standards Become Strong
Great HR does not simply compare numbers—it defines what should be valued.
HR is the only function capable of designing the company’s value system.
Thus, the company’s competitive capacity depends on HR’s ability to build evaluation philosophy.
■What HR must design
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Clear KGI (ultimate goals)
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Identification of value drivers
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Decomposition of KDI (behavioral drivers)
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Design of KPI (outcome indicators)
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Rules for correcting difficulty and condition differences
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Definition of total contribution
This mirrors MLB’s sabermetrics: designing metrics that reveal true performance, not surface-level outcomes.
A company grows only if HR can translate its strategy into measurable value standards.
**Chapter 4｜Why Home Runs Do Not Measure a Player’s True Value
──Lessons from MLB’s Evolving Metrics**
For decades, MLB evaluated players with home runs, batting average, and RBIs. But home run counts are shaped by:
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ballpark size and wall height
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altitude
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opposing pitcher quality
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team offensive strategy
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lineup position and opportunity volume
The same number can mean entirely different things.
MLB solved this by introducing WAR (Wins Above Replacement)—a unified measure combining batting, baserunning, defense, positional difficulty, and park factors.
Evaluation is the process of removing noise to find true contribution.
This is exactly what HR must do.
Chapter 5｜Companies Also Need Their Own “WAR”
Just as MLB players operate under different conditions, employees do as well.
Therefore, companies cannot evaluate everyone with the same yardstick.
▼ Different company types require different value standards
| Company Type | What Should Be Valued |
|---|---|
| New-acquisition-driven | Lead generation, zero-to-one relationship building |
| Subscription model | Churn rate, NPS, CS, renewal rates |
| Key-account-driven | Executive relationships, strategic proposals |
| Tech-driven | Technical depth, problem diagnosis, dev collaboration |
A company’s strength is determined by whether HR can define its own value model and embed it into evaluation standards.
Chapter 6｜How to Build Your Company’s “WAR”
▼ Process for creating a corporate WAR
| Step | Content |
|---|---|
| 1. Define KGI | Market share, margin, churn, ARPU |
| 2. Identify value drivers | Acquisition, retention, technical quality, brand |
| 3. Break down KDI | Visits, proposals, onboarding, problem diagnosis |
| 4. Set KPI | Retention, churn, upsell rates |
| 5. Adjust for conditions | Customer size, pre-existing trust, market competition |
| 6. Calculate total contribution | Combine results, retention, and team contribution |
This is not “number crunching.”
It is the intellectual process of defining how your company wins.
HR capable of building such systems becomes a strategic engine—not an administrative function.
Final Chapter｜Evaluation Systems Are the Company’s Intelligence
An evaluation system is not an HR tool—it is the embodiment of corporate intelligence.
Companies that rely on equality, emotional hiring, or surface-level metrics decline.
Those whose HR can define value, design standards, and give meaning to numbers will survive.
The future belongs to companies whose HR can create evaluation systems—not merely operate them.
Read in Japanese ↓（For Japanese learners!）↓
人事評価で楽をするな、汗をかけ｜MLB流HRとは（2025.11.28）
Read more articles (in Japanese)↓
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