Appraisal After Effects

Performance appraisal is one of the things which you work for. The letters “A”, “B”, “C”, “D” and “E”, has importance not only for a nursery kid, but also for an IT employee as well. It does not only add a star to your personality/resume, it motivates you as well to work more efficiently further BUT what if the results are not up to your expectations.

At the end of day, the bottom line is, we are working for monetary benefit first. We work effectively and efficiently for the whole year because we want our work to get recognized which leads to an automated hike in our salary structure.

While a kid, we wake up early morning for our school no matter, how lazy we are feeling. Likewise, now we wake-up for our office no matter, how hard you partied last night.

What if at the end of the day, your work is not getting recognized. You are not getting appreciated for your work. Sometimes, result of the performance appraisal leads employees towards demotivation whereasit’s a matter of celebration for the rest.

These are the 3 mistakes which may lead to an adverse after effect

1) Ignoring Project feedback:  In a services company, people work across multiple projects during a appraisal year. The project team may not be keen in giving feedback as they have their work done through a loaned resource. The supervisor who is giving evaluation may not be aware what the candidate would have done in the project. Ideally, project end appraisal should be given. Through this process, the organization would achieve the following:

• Provide feedback and specific instances on associate’s performance for specific project goals and provide the final project ranking(Good, Satisfactory, Needs Improvement).

• Seek the Project Manager’s inputs.

• Make the project end appraisal document available for review with the associate’s supervisor.

• Make the Project Appraisal document accessible in the system for project manager/supervisor’s evaluation.

• Please note that in case the supervisor wants to seek additional information on the associate’s performance, he/she may nominate the PM/additional participant by nominating them. A participant could be the Team Lead. Upon receiving the feedback from the project manager, the supervisor can complete the evaluation and make this available for the associate’s view.

2) Not setting the goals for the associates:  It’s advisable to set the goals during the beginning of the year so that the associate has some direction/ benchmark to follow.If it was not done initially, then the associate might say that he is not aware of what was supposed to be done. The performance for specific project goals set for the associates are measured through and it would be an important parameter towards the year end appraisal. These steps can be followed

• Set the goals for the associate at the beginning of the year.

• The goals should be measurable. For example the associate should have got at least one appreciation email from the client or participated in at least 3 RFPs (proposals).

• The goals should be divided under various categories like project related goals, organizational goals etc.

• For one goal you the associate can receive feedback from previous supervisor/ Project Manager.

• Have a 30-30 discussion on the goals, which means 30 minutes meeting once in 30 days. Focus on associates’ strengths and areas of improvement.

3) Trying to fit everyone in the normal curve:  Many companies follow the norm of fitting everyone in the normal curve. There could be more number of high performers who might not fit in the peak of the bell curve. They are left demotivated. At the same time, there could be other good performers who are given a bad rating just to fill the last bracket of 0.13% or 2.14%.  They get the rating what they don’t deserve. They are the one who tend to leave the company. To avoid such scenario individual performance should be given attention rather than fitting people blindly in the normal curve.

To keep up the employee’s motivation and avoiding th side effects of appraisal the above 3 pitfalls should be avoided. Additionally, the following measures can be taken to improve the present appraisal System:-

• Person who is getting grade “A” since 3-4 years must get a greater hike than those who got it for the first time. This clearly indicates that the person would be a consistent performer.

• One to One discussion does not work out well at times, as your boss or sub-ordinates may be having some personal issues with you. Try to have a 360 degree conversation in which the HR also participates in the discussion.

• There must be a panel of members made by the HR- Committee to look after the process going on fair basis.

• If the employee is not satisfied with their result. They must get the chance to counter question or scrutinize it.

• Voting system could also be added in the performance appraisal method.

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