Appraisals ñ the right road but the wrong direction

Appraisals should form an intrinsic and fundamental part of any business, nurturing personal development and helping to align company strategy. In reality, the appraisal process is often the most ineffective for both employer and employee. Most of us fall down on the same key points ñ firstly, the people conducting the appraisals are ill equipped to do so, and are shoe-horned into using a system that they havenít actually been trained to use properly. Secondly, in most businesses they happen once or maybe twice a year, so all the formal feedback we provide is condensed into just one meeting. Consequently, the process is actually quite stressful for everyone involved and largely ineffective. And that surely misses the point entirely.

So why do we continually put our colleagues into a position where they are forced to work with systems that continually fail them? Thatís what many of us do with our appraisal systems ñ we ask our management to persevere with an approach which allows us to feel that we have a well run business because all of our staff are annually appraised, but in reality it is all too often largely counter-productive.

Most managers view the appraisal season with a sense of gloom and dread. There are a number of reasons for this: firstly managers feel ill equipped to carry out a constructive appraisal session a number of times over and honestly assess and report on their staff. There is then the matter of how good the system is itself. In many cases systems have been devised specifically for a particular organisation, in other words custom made. Thereafter the manager is expected to find practical and objective ways of gauging the performance and find ways of articulating this in a meaningful way. Not an easy thing to do ñ indeed, objectivity is probably the biggest problem we all face. Without guidance as to how a judgement is made there can be severe disagreements about any sort of rating which can then mean time consuming arbitration. Furthermore if we combine this with the fact that personal likes and dislikes enter the equation then the whole output and outcome of the appraisal must be considered suspect. There are some fundamental questions we need to ask ourselves:

Is it always necessary when considering the whole issue of measuring performance, coaching and developing people, to intellectualise the process beyond the comprehension of most of the system users?

Is it necessary to create overly complicated forms and other documentation such that the user is expected to spend disproportionate amounts of time planning the appraisal session and writing up the content and results of the actual discussion?

Is an appraisal carried out at six or more often twelve, monthly intervals really of benefit given that development and improvement need constant monitoring and guidance?

Why do managers have difficulty just simply talking with and coaching their staff?

One classic example is the comparison of two appraisal documents after completion, one of which covered a good performer and a poor performer. The fact that they were almost exactly the same demonstrated how much difficulty the manager had in articulating his thoughts about the people being appraised.

So what does the word appraisal actually mean? The dictionary says it is ìan assessment of the worth or quality of a personî. Having said that how often do people come out of an appraisal meeting feeling of low worth ñ probably as a consequence of the managerís inability to hold a focussed discussion? Should we therefore blame the managers for this perception of appraisals? We should place the blame in two areas: firstly with the system designers who endeavour to make the forms too smart and yet too blank to be of help, and secondly the companies themselves who buy these products but provide minimal training to their managers in the necessary communication skills needed to ensure the system is producing benefit. Itís another frustrating example of investing more in the system itself than in the people skills for those who are to use the system.

From one-off appraisal to ongoing feedback

So what is the answer? We have to get away from the ëpenalty shoot-outí, pressured, one-off event and move towards a personal and continuous appraisal system which ensures that feedback and development are provided on a timely basis and which the managers find easy and constructive to use. A system which links the personal performance back to the departmental and ultimately the corporate goals. A system that provided a simple set of criteria on which to base the feedback and development.

It may sound like a management clich but the encouragement of ëdialogueí on a regular basis means managers and their staff fully understand all that is expected of them and how they are contributing to the companyís overall strategy. They begin to welcome these dialogue sessions as they not only provide a vehicle for the personís continual development but also a forum for raising issues and concerns. As a consequence the message is two way and moreover much more motivating, meaningful and effective.

What ends up happening is that it takes the focus away from the process and gets everyone involved to concentrate on what matters ñ improving the way in which we work, so thereís plenty in it for the people on the receiving end. On the flip side, management can have a stronger sense that their people are improving all the time and that their individual goals closely match the wide aspirations of the business.

Eric Parker is the founder of Vector Management Systems