Ask most HR people why their company uses a performance rating scale and you will likely get a response such as, "Without ratings, how will people know where they stand?" or "How will we justify increases if there are no ratings?" or even, "It’s just the way it has always been done here." Labeling employees with a rating is a practice that has been in place for a long time at most companies and more times than not, performance ratings are linked to other processes such as salary increases,