The annual performance appraisals are in
striking distance from now. Bulk of the employees are not amused as much as the
companies are convinced of their performance appraisal systems. Most of them
consider it as an unnecessary ordeal rather than a cordial exchange of
feedback.
Every organization- be it a profit oriented
business, community organization, school, not for profit organization, sports
administration body - to be effective needs to measure and manage performance
of its people. Everyone knows as much; yet no one knows what works always. That
is probably because nothing works always and everywhere. Peter Drucker said,
‘what is measured improves’. However, measuring is not managing. Managing
performance of people has always been hard. Despite all sophisticated systems
of performance measurement, companies still want the employee to ‘discuss’
performance with the manager. Performance discussions are at times dreaded and
often causes anxiety for the employees.
Even the most consummate artiste undergoes
some amount of anxiety before very performance or a live show. If that be the
case what to talk about ordinary folks who go about doing their work day in or
night out, when asked to appear for the ‘annual performance show(down)’? For the
average employee when a day’s job is done it is done and dusted. Why make a
cumulative obituary of all those activities and stake a claim for the next
salary raise? That would appear more like over time working. To her the boss or
the intelligent machine that records her daily job should make out what it
means to work for 12 months. Why wait till the end of the year to give
feedback? There is always some system to track you when something goes wrong,
if not instantly at least after a short lag time. So why is it that the same
system or similar system not able to track when things are going right?
Not that all companies aren’t doing this.
Many of the business process management or BPO companies monitor and record
transactions instantly and even customer feedback registered live online. They
even have video footages for the facial expressions of the service executives.
They may not need the year end exercise to decide on the performance level of
the employee. But, such companies are a few in number. For most companies an
honest employee needs to still prove her performance credentials on the PMS
workflow when there is enough evidence for what she has done well and what she
goofed up? Now, let’s imagine that the company doesn’t have good systems and
the manager was too busy to take note of the performance of his team members.
The solution to that has to come from the company and the manager’s end rather
than subjecting the employee to defend her case for a rating and a salary
rise.
Here we are assuming that the manager is
the villain of the story. That is not quite true as well. The manager is
equally anxious about holding a performance review meeting with his team member
or the board or even the venture capitalists. Often such meetings are not very
easy and at worst turn out to be unpleasant and ugly arguments, emotional
exchanges or a plain drama of masked characters. Both parties may want to avoid
a confrontation and move on. The manager will have a succession list ready and
the employee will have his resume up on job sites or with discreet head
hunters.
Of course, what is written here is a
caricature of performance appraisal meeting that tends to make everyone a
victim. That cannot be entirely true.
All the talk about companies abandoning the
bell curve and annual appraisals etc., needs to be viewed more critically. End
of the day, hardly any organization can function successfully without periodic
performance reviews and rewards linked to performance. Whether it is going to
be annual, quarterly, monthly or project-wise is a matter of frequency and
state of the engagement. Whether the system will have a three-point rating or
five-point rating scale too is a matter of convenience. Whether there is a
formal guidance on a certain percentage distribution of ratings or an informal
way of managing the distribution is a matter of maturity of the system. These
are not the most critical aspects of a well functioning performance management
system.
A well-functioning Performance Management System
will have more number of employees aligned to the goals of the organization. Breaking down these to measurable performance indicators is by no means an easy task. Some of those would be highly measurable and some of them may be loosely
measurable and yet others will be just felt or perceived but not measured at
all. That calls for management judgement and empathy applied judiciously.
Abdicating such management responsibilities and thinking that a new system will
cure all ills of performance in the organization is foolhardy. Performance
management is more like a performing art than like a measurement system. Time
to go back to basics and listen to Peter Drucker again: “The productivity of
work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.”
