Are you still writing performance appraisals? If not, you’ve either knocked them out (congratulations by-the-way!) or you’re hoping that you can procrastinate a bit longer. Or, maybe you’re secretly hoping that things will be so busy that they will be forgotten until the next cycle. Hopefully, for your employees and your company, the latter is not true.
It’s a common problem in management today. Managers don’t just manage people anymore. Managers at all levels are expected to be hands-on, individual contributors as well as provide direction and oversight to a team. Many times the busyness of the day and crisis management tend to distract managers away from leading the people.
One of the key issues that cause managers to dread yearly evaluations is that performance is only really managed with a formal, annual performance appraisal. It’s viewed by the managers as an event horizon, like a Black Hole looming on the edge of space, pulling them closer to the appraisal form singularity.
Top companies have a culture of top-level, ongoing performance management. To help your company get on the road to top performance, incorporate these five tips into your performance strategy and processes.
1. Make performance management an ongoing practice. Document performance (good and bad) throughout the year and address performance problems immediately. So many managers wait too long to address performance that they have no idea what to write when it is time for the annual review.
2. Connect corporate Goals to individual performance goals. Help your leadership teams make the connections between the broader corporate vision, strategy, and goals, and how the larger objectives trickle down to departmental and individual goal setting and goal attainment. Maybe as an HR professional or as a manager you can start small with one department or team. Show the connection between the department’s performance, the gaps in skills, and the improvement plans and talent acquisition plans that will help fill those gaps. The performance appraisal is the cornerstone of putting all of it together.
3. Audit your job descriptions. Look at each position in the company and link the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or competencies that make up the job descriptions. Make sure that they correspond to the competencies on the performance appraisal forms for any given job or group of jobs. This assumes that you have a system that will allow form customization of job competencies.
4. Define the rating scale and continue to communicate it. Whether you use a five point scale, a ten point scale, or no scale at all, different managers and employees will interpret scoring differently. There are those are down-right miserly and those who are too generous when it comes to scoring. And there are those who argue that the score is meaningless. But we all know that everyone in life is graded. Just remember, there should be no surprises! If you use a rating scale, communicate throughout the year what the KPIs are and how you interpret the scale on which they are being graded.
5. Align employee development plans to your appraisal forms. Look into using a system that links performance management and learning opportunities. Ideally, as a manager, you want to be able to assign, track, and measure the performance results of employee development plans.
David S. Anderson, SPHR David Anderson is a strategic Human Resources professional with over 10 years of HR experience, mostly in the technology industry. He is currently the Global Human Resources Manager for Double-Take Software and is a graduate of Indiana University.Dave is a regular blogger on leadership and management best practices at www.doubletakespoon.wordpress.com and on HR Topics as they relate to generational topics and observations in the workplace at www.MyGenX.wordpress.com.
David’s focus in Human Resources is global talent acquisition, talent management and learning, organizational improvement, succession planning, employee relations, and HR technologies.
"Year End Appraisal" photo courtesy of TeeJe
