Just had a chat with a very frustrated head of HR from a social service agency. She was on the trade show floor shopping for performance management software.
I challenged her that when she installed the online system, that the managers would hate it at the same as they hate the paper based one, only at a faster rate. They would be ignoring her at the speed of light, not the speed of paper.
The answer? Use the guise of the economic crisis to redesign the system using a “clean sheet of paper” approach, both eliminating waste and respecting her people. Simply put, make it better and stop the madness.
She is going to call a meeting with her managers, and redraft the system using social networking tools as the engine of communication, and get away from annual reviews. Faster, simpler, better. I’ll keep you posted.
Karl Ahlrichs' Uncommon Experience 
Hey, is this some aspect of Grudin’s Law (applies to groupware in general)
“If the person responsible for using the system does not benefit, the system is doomed to failure.”