Hi All, I work with one of the Top 5 IT Companies in Chennai. Last year, I shifted to a new role within the same organization / BU. I shifted so that I can stay within the same hierarchy that I have been with for the past 5 years. My last appraisal which was closed in November or so, rated me as the lowest performer within a team of 8 with a rating of 32 out of 40 total points. There was an rejig at the top level ( which is why I shifted ) and the new folks didn't know me that well. My then boss, also moved to the same org and has been trying to resolve this rating issue. The present team in my old role were mostly trained by me and I know for a fact that apart from one other person the rest of the 6 can't be rated over me in bell curve. The other guy who could be rated higher left the company before the appraisal closed. I should have been rated as the Top performer and given a promotion, which I wasn't. I have been working with my previous manager to get this resolved and she put the blame on the new management in that team. After 5 months, they have increased my rating to one level up. However, there's no change in salary or bonus payout yet.
On this note, I am planning to ask for the rating data of my other teammates so that I can compare and see who has scored more than 32 on the appraisal. Is this something they can share ? Given that they have used that rating to score me so low. I need them to justify why I was rated so poorly and when they say Bell curve, isn't it within my rights to know how they have scored me ? Kindly let me know your thoughts. Sorry about the long post.
From India, Madras
On this note, I am planning to ask for the rating data of my other teammates so that I can compare and see who has scored more than 32 on the appraisal. Is this something they can share ? Given that they have used that rating to score me so low. I need them to justify why I was rated so poorly and when they say Bell curve, isn't it within my rights to know how they have scored me ? Kindly let me know your thoughts. Sorry about the long post.
From India, Madras
Dear friend,
First and foremost, I recommend you going "Anonymous" in case you have shared your real name. It is important for you to protect your identity.
Secondly, the appraisal process is devised by HR. Yours is top 5 IT companies of India. With whatever grievances you have, why you did not approach your HR? I recommend you asking for interview of senior HR person and resolve the matter.
Thirdly, as far as sharing the details of appraisal rating of other colleague is concerned, I doubt whether your company can oblige for this. Generally the rating is kept confidential. What is the policy of your company is best known to you.
Comments for other HR Members: - There is unsaid part of the post. If you read between the lines, you will find that the poster of the post deemed it fit to put his grievance on the public forum rather than approaching his HR department. This shows the disconnect between HR and the general employee. In the erstwhile era of Personnel Management, workers felt psychological closeness with the trade union. Now instead of trade unions employees upload their grievances on public forum. Does this mean that whether during the days of personnel management or HR, nothing is changed and the distance between HR and common employee is as usual?
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
7879First and foremost, I recommend you going "Anonymous" in case you have shared your real name. It is important for you to protect your identity.
Secondly, the appraisal process is devised by HR. Yours is top 5 IT companies of India. With whatever grievances you have, why you did not approach your HR? I recommend you asking for interview of senior HR person and resolve the matter.
Thirdly, as far as sharing the details of appraisal rating of other colleague is concerned, I doubt whether your company can oblige for this. Generally the rating is kept confidential. What is the policy of your company is best known to you.
Comments for other HR Members: - There is unsaid part of the post. If you read between the lines, you will find that the poster of the post deemed it fit to put his grievance on the public forum rather than approaching his HR department. This shows the disconnect between HR and the general employee. In the erstwhile era of Personnel Management, workers felt psychological closeness with the trade union. Now instead of trade unions employees upload their grievances on public forum. Does this mean that whether during the days of personnel management or HR, nothing is changed and the distance between HR and common employee is as usual?
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
Dear Mr Dinesh,
Thank you for your post. They have always been very helpful and informative. I have seen many of your posts and it has been very knowledgeable to me. I have been reading Cite Hr newsletter since more than a year. But never registered. Now recently i have joined it. And hoping to get good views and opinions from everybody.
Regards,
Marilyn.
From India, Mumbai
Thank you for your post. They have always been very helpful and informative. I have seen many of your posts and it has been very knowledgeable to me. I have been reading Cite Hr newsletter since more than a year. But never registered. Now recently i have joined it. And hoping to get good views and opinions from everybody.
Regards,
Marilyn.
From India, Mumbai
Dear Ms Marilyn,
Thanks for your explicit acknowledge. Depending on the time at your disposal, you too can participate in various discussions. You may contribute your views or experiences. Healthy exchange of information always enhances the intellectual health.
All the best!
Dinesh Divekar
Dear Mr Dinesh,
Thank you for your post. They have always been very helpful and informative. I have seen many of your posts and it has been very knowledgeable to me. I have been reading Cite Hr newsletter since more than a year. But never registered. Now recently i have joined it. And hoping to get good views and opinions from everybody.
Regards,
Marilyn.
From India, Bangalore
Thanks for your explicit acknowledge. Depending on the time at your disposal, you too can participate in various discussions. You may contribute your views or experiences. Healthy exchange of information always enhances the intellectual health.
All the best!
Dinesh Divekar
Dear Mr Dinesh,
Thank you for your post. They have always been very helpful and informative. I have seen many of your posts and it has been very knowledgeable to me. I have been reading Cite Hr newsletter since more than a year. But never registered. Now recently i have joined it. And hoping to get good views and opinions from everybody.
Regards,
Marilyn.
From India, Bangalore
The plan is to approach the HR, before that I need to know what my options are. Unless I am known to the HR folks well enough, nothing concrete will happen. The ratings are just on the system, the managers decide who gets what. Nepotism is rampant in every company and out here the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Unfortunately, I am a employee who believes the system should work without any intervention. It doesn't and I am planning to discuss all these issues / challenges with the HR team this year as well. They weren't able to provide any inputs that changed last time, this time I just want to be prepared for all eventualities.
From India, Madras
From India, Madras
Anonymous:
This may be a bit late, and I hope you have already met your senior HR person with this issue, but if not - here are some responses to some of your queries above. Even if you shifted / transferred to a new role in a different BU, appraisals are always done by the new manager (assuming you were already in your new role at the time of your annual performance review), in consultation with the previous managers. Since you say your Company is one of the top 5 IT companies in Chennai I am sure they follow this process and the next steps I am enumerating.
Bell curve distribution can only be arrived at if the no. of the employees in a particular BU / dept are large. It cannot be arrived at for small depts. Not sure how big your dept or team within the B.U was, as you have not mentioned that. Even if the bell curve distribution was done, it would ideally be done across B.U's and your managers would have been brought into discussion to discuss and agree on final ratings for the team which includes your performance rating, with the B.U Head and HR Head and possibly the M.D / CEO / Site Head (whoever is the head of the company in Chennai).
If the managers are not able to defend your performance rating (assuming you were initially rated high) then your performance would be compared to others within the B.U / Dept (not just your immediate team) and the rating normalised and ranked accordingly (since supervisors tend to either be too lenient or too strict and some very rarely give objective ratings, this process is adhered to in all good companies).
HR will of course as mentioned by others, not share other team members ratings and certainly not the distribution curve as this is very confidential. But I am surprised that being a top 5 IT company in Chennai, your supervisor (past / present) has not discussed your performance review with you and informed you of your strengths and areas of improvement. Ratings are sometimes also then shared. Then all this would not have been a surprise (shock) to you. Salaries too nowadays (since recent years) are not dependent only on performance rating. There are other criteria as well that are considered by many companies - you really should ask for and set up a meeting with your Senior HR Business Partner for your B.U and / HR Head and talk to them about your issues. HR is always there to help and I am sure they will help explain and sort out your issue.
Hope this helps and all the best.
From India, Mangalore
This may be a bit late, and I hope you have already met your senior HR person with this issue, but if not - here are some responses to some of your queries above. Even if you shifted / transferred to a new role in a different BU, appraisals are always done by the new manager (assuming you were already in your new role at the time of your annual performance review), in consultation with the previous managers. Since you say your Company is one of the top 5 IT companies in Chennai I am sure they follow this process and the next steps I am enumerating.
Bell curve distribution can only be arrived at if the no. of the employees in a particular BU / dept are large. It cannot be arrived at for small depts. Not sure how big your dept or team within the B.U was, as you have not mentioned that. Even if the bell curve distribution was done, it would ideally be done across B.U's and your managers would have been brought into discussion to discuss and agree on final ratings for the team which includes your performance rating, with the B.U Head and HR Head and possibly the M.D / CEO / Site Head (whoever is the head of the company in Chennai).
If the managers are not able to defend your performance rating (assuming you were initially rated high) then your performance would be compared to others within the B.U / Dept (not just your immediate team) and the rating normalised and ranked accordingly (since supervisors tend to either be too lenient or too strict and some very rarely give objective ratings, this process is adhered to in all good companies).
HR will of course as mentioned by others, not share other team members ratings and certainly not the distribution curve as this is very confidential. But I am surprised that being a top 5 IT company in Chennai, your supervisor (past / present) has not discussed your performance review with you and informed you of your strengths and areas of improvement. Ratings are sometimes also then shared. Then all this would not have been a surprise (shock) to you. Salaries too nowadays (since recent years) are not dependent only on performance rating. There are other criteria as well that are considered by many companies - you really should ask for and set up a meeting with your Senior HR Business Partner for your B.U and / HR Head and talk to them about your issues. HR is always there to help and I am sure they will help explain and sort out your issue.
Hope this helps and all the best.
From India, Mangalore
Assuming that Mr.Annonymous is working as a Software Engineer in IT company, he can be said to be a workman in terms of the decision by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal - Bangalore, in Assistant Commissioner Of Income vs Texas Instruments (India) (P) decided on 21 December, 2006, (2008) 115 TTJ Bang 976
holding as follows:
"In appellant's case the software engineers in respect of whom deduction under Section 80JJAA has been claimed have not been employed in a supervisory capacity even though they may be getting a salary of more than Rs. 1,600 per month. As the software engineers were not employed in supervisory capacity they cannot be excluded from the definition of workman. Further as per the notification of the Karnataka Government, the appellant company engaged in the development of software is covered by the Industrial Disputes Act."
If he is a workman then provisions of ID Act are applicable and the treatment met to him is unfair labour practice. The denial raise and promotion is illegal. Further, the denial of increment is treated to be denial of property which cannot be unreasonably denied to him. The union of the IT company can also take up the issue.
Thanks
Sushil
From India, New Delhi
holding as follows:
"In appellant's case the software engineers in respect of whom deduction under Section 80JJAA has been claimed have not been employed in a supervisory capacity even though they may be getting a salary of more than Rs. 1,600 per month. As the software engineers were not employed in supervisory capacity they cannot be excluded from the definition of workman. Further as per the notification of the Karnataka Government, the appellant company engaged in the development of software is covered by the Industrial Disputes Act."
If he is a workman then provisions of ID Act are applicable and the treatment met to him is unfair labour practice. The denial raise and promotion is illegal. Further, the denial of increment is treated to be denial of property which cannot be unreasonably denied to him. The union of the IT company can also take up the issue.
Thanks
Sushil
From India, New Delhi
Hello Anonymous,
As suggested by the seniors above, I think your first step should be to discuss with your HR the basis of your rating and understand the rationale behind it. Approach them with your list of achievements / successful initiatives those should be well documented with you.
I would suggest please do not assume anything based on your past experiences with your seniors or HR. These could be your thoughts and not facts. Be open to discuss assertively and politely how such rating was arrived at. It will not be right to ask ratings given to your other team members to compare with yours, instead try to resolve this issue justifying how your rating could have been better based on your accomplishments.
With best regards,
Vaishalee Parkhi
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/vaishal...khi/62/9ab/6b0
From India, Pune
As suggested by the seniors above, I think your first step should be to discuss with your HR the basis of your rating and understand the rationale behind it. Approach them with your list of achievements / successful initiatives those should be well documented with you.
I would suggest please do not assume anything based on your past experiences with your seniors or HR. These could be your thoughts and not facts. Be open to discuss assertively and politely how such rating was arrived at. It will not be right to ask ratings given to your other team members to compare with yours, instead try to resolve this issue justifying how your rating could have been better based on your accomplishments.
With best regards,
Vaishalee Parkhi
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/vaishal...khi/62/9ab/6b0
From India, Pune
Community Support and Knowledge-base on business, career and organisational prospects and issues - Register and Log In to CiteHR and post your query, download formats and be part of a fostered community of professionals.
Sample Performance Appraisal rating form.doc
Manpower Planning Form(1).xls