Well, Well, Well!
Performance Appraisals are one of the most important and often mishandled aspects of management. We often think about a boss, evaluating his/her employee's performance. As years rolled by, this trend shifted from boss evaluating subordinate's performance to boss being evaluated by a subordinate. This, we call it the 360-appraisal, considering the opinion of bosses, subordinates, colleagues, and even customers, at times.
It usually means systematic evaluation of one's performance across various dimensions. The main purpose of this is to consistently work on developing individual knowledge, skills and abilities, to establish well-defined goals and provide valuable feedback for personal and professional growth.
Significance
To know,
What your employees' are doing?
Why they are doing?
How they're doing?
Hype or Happening?
Consistent feedback on a monthly or quarterly basis is proved to more effective than an Annual feedback. Various studies indicate that monthly/quarterly feedback are much effective than the usual annual reviews. In a study, almost 50% of the employees performed above-average, when the feedback/review was given on a quarterly basis. This creates an awareness about lots of missed opportunities to solve problems and to improve performance and productivity.
What's Cool!? 😉
All Aboard!
Identify what needs to be accomplished by you or by your team. This gives an idea of all the tasks lying ahead, and you come up with an plan to achieve those targets. Question yourself why this performance management program is required, and eventually you uncover a lot of aspects that you had no idea about.
Happy Island
Once we know what has to be accomplished, the bigger picture, we should now focus towards what one needs to do to achieve it. So, design goals that assist you or your team to be focused, in order to complete the task. Without knowing where to go, we can't arrive at the destination! Add life to the organization's goals by defining what every individual has to contribute. This will help the employees' to be focused towards tasks/projects that helps the organization to move up the ladder. Your passengers will not be lost during the journey!
Visualize
As we set goals, we must ensure that those goals are met. It's good to develop a performance plan, that provides your employees' a path towards enlightenment. The long-term goals might scare your employees, and could possibly hinder productivity. So, break your goals into pieces that every employee can collect during the journey. This not only makes the task easier, but also improves their confidence of accomplishing tasks. They preferably take up challenging tasks in an environment like this.
Be on the lookout!
Its always good to avoid mistakes. Your employees' must be monitored continuously to make sure they don't meet with accidents, during the course of travel. The main purpose of this is to help them identify obstacles and make them overcome it. This should't scare the employees', as it makes the situation even worse. When this is done frequently in a monthly or quarterly basis, the fear of meeting with accident evades, and your employees might reach the destination much earlier.
Race! Win!
Foster a culture that promotes healthy competition among employees'. Create and promote a culture where every employee is willing to take part in the race, to achieve organizational goals. Participating in a race doesn't make them winners. Provide necessary and adequate coaching and moral support to make them believe in their potential, which eventually helps them to win the race.
Upgrade your machine!
We can't win the race without an extraordinary racer and a cool machine! The employee as well as the tool that is used to assess the performance must be upgraded frequently, to keep up the pace. Employees' can be given tasks that is both challenging and achievable, and the method/tool to measure performance must not be outdated. The problem is not with the employee always, maybe the complexity in the policies, procedures and process might hinder growth and development. If there is a lack either with the employee or with the tool, we lose the race.
Earn Fans!
In a race, we earn fans by throwing out a charming spell. This spell could be your feedback! When the spell is positive and constructive, you earn a lot of fans. Instead of just pinpointing mistakes, guide your employees for future success. And by default, managers are good at throwing charm spells 😜 use it wisely.
Upgrade Up-graders!
Don't just stop with upgrading your racers and machines. Go beyond! Work on making the designer effective. Managers too require training and assistance to make performance management plan effective. This is to keep the feedback professional, i.e., every up-gradation comment must focus on modifying technique/behavior to accomplish goals, rather than making employees' feel ashamed about the mistake they have done during the process.
Expert Advise
We can know the real performance, not just by evaluating the racer and the machine. But, also through knowing the opinion of fans and other legends. It is good to hear out the performance evaluation of bosses, through subordinates, colleagues, customers, etc., and vice versa.
World Championship!
Up-gradation, expert advise, earning fans is all important. Also, the racer gets the spirit of winning only when there is a championship title! Apart from feedback and frequent reviews, employees' must be rewarded for the work they have done. Introduce creative rewards system that helps your employees' to be motivated until they accomplish the goals. Every employee who has worked sincerely will expect the management to offer them championship titles, trophies and awards. Do this right, and the race becomes much interesting.
😃 Always remember that you need an extraordinary driver, upgraded cool machine and world championship titles to win the race, over and over again, in a highly competitive environment!
~ Nithish Kumar S
~ M.A., HRM, DGVC.

From India, Chennai
Dear Nithish Kumar S,
Good to note that you have written an article on the Performance Appraisal (PA). However, the focus of the article remains on the individual rather than organisation. PA is more to measure the organisational performance. What if the individual performance is measured but organisational performance is not measured? Who will be responsible for that?
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar

From India, Bangalore
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