In March every year comes that part of the financial year when everyone either gets appraised or is doing a performance appraisal. This is one time of the year when everyone from your boss to his boss has to conduct what they find least pleasing. Nevertheless, being a necessary evil, everyone has his or her own style of performance appraisals. I have myself been appraised by very good and pathetic bosses during the course of my banking career and have thought of some things that one must keep in mind while carrying out an appraisal.
Time-This is probably the only time of the year when someone reporting to you has a chance to voice his or her own opinion about various things in the organization/department. It is important that rather than your tongue doing overtime, the appraisee talks more. Listen to him/her; cajole him/her to speak out. If the appraisee agrees with what you are saying then either you or your department is perfect or they don’t have confidence in you to speak out. Since the former is an illusion, the latter is true in most cases. Ultimately, it is your failure as a boss.
Importance- It needs to be made very clear to each and everyone that the Performance appraisal is not a form filling exercise and that you mean business.
Direction- The performance appraisal is also a time when you give/get directions for the next year. It is important that the appraiser is very forthright and clear in what is required from the appraisee in the coming future. While change is certain, broad guidelines will remain the same. A performance appraisal is not a fault finding exercise and should not be treated as one.
Objectivity-Try and remove any element of subjectivity from the entire exercise, the more objective a performance appraisal is, more meaningful and less painful it becomes. While it may not be possible to remove all subjectivity from the process, it always helps if you are ready with numbers, both as an appraisee and as an appraiser. Even in case of soft skills, be ready with e-mails etc to make it clear of the guidelines given by you at times/alarms raised by you at times. Try and remove your likes and dislikes about the person as much as possible in the process. While this may sound clichéd, however the more it is adhered to, the better is the appraisal process.
Rating: In most of the cases in my professional career, the final word in the appraisal exercise is not the last one. Words like ‘moderation’ ‘bell-curve’ exist in every organization. While it may not be possible to give exact ratings for fear of embarrassment in front of the appraisee at a later date, you need to broadly tell and update the appraisee of where he or she stands. If you have reasonable amount of intellect, this is not a very difficult thing to do.
Finally, this is the time the poor guy after working his guts out throughout the year has been waiting for, it is important that he is reasonably satisfied at the outcome of the process. It is not humanly possible to satisfy everyone at the same time, if you are rational and objective; in most of the cases the objective is achieved. Finally a boss is only as good as his team; the converse is not true, if you need to run your business for the next year as well, try not to de-motivate the poor chap to death but to encourage him to do better.
Time-This is probably the only time of the year when someone reporting to you has a chance to voice his or her own opinion about various things in the organization/department. It is important that rather than your tongue doing overtime, the appraisee talks more. Listen to him/her; cajole him/her to speak out. If the appraisee agrees with what you are saying then either you or your department is perfect or they don’t have confidence in you to speak out. Since the former is an illusion, the latter is true in most cases. Ultimately, it is your failure as a boss.
Importance- It needs to be made very clear to each and everyone that the Performance appraisal is not a form filling exercise and that you mean business.
Direction- The performance appraisal is also a time when you give/get directions for the next year. It is important that the appraiser is very forthright and clear in what is required from the appraisee in the coming future. While change is certain, broad guidelines will remain the same. A performance appraisal is not a fault finding exercise and should not be treated as one.
Objectivity-Try and remove any element of subjectivity from the entire exercise, the more objective a performance appraisal is, more meaningful and less painful it becomes. While it may not be possible to remove all subjectivity from the process, it always helps if you are ready with numbers, both as an appraisee and as an appraiser. Even in case of soft skills, be ready with e-mails etc to make it clear of the guidelines given by you at times/alarms raised by you at times. Try and remove your likes and dislikes about the person as much as possible in the process. While this may sound clichéd, however the more it is adhered to, the better is the appraisal process.
Rating: In most of the cases in my professional career, the final word in the appraisal exercise is not the last one. Words like ‘moderation’ ‘bell-curve’ exist in every organization. While it may not be possible to give exact ratings for fear of embarrassment in front of the appraisee at a later date, you need to broadly tell and update the appraisee of where he or she stands. If you have reasonable amount of intellect, this is not a very difficult thing to do.
Finally, this is the time the poor guy after working his guts out throughout the year has been waiting for, it is important that he is reasonably satisfied at the outcome of the process. It is not humanly possible to satisfy everyone at the same time, if you are rational and objective; in most of the cases the objective is achieved. Finally a boss is only as good as his team; the converse is not true, if you need to run your business for the next year as well, try not to de-motivate the poor chap to death but to encourage him to do better.
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