Performance appraisals are common practice in most companies and although there are many different methods for gathering the data there is a real need to ensure that they are used in a productive way. Employees are a company asset, productive employees directly affect the company’s bottom line, so it makes sense to consider appraisals as an extremely important business tool. When I worked in the corporate world, I dreaded the meeting based around my 360 appraisal. It was a chore that I couldn’t wait to get out the way and I practiced hiding that glazed look in my eye and pretended to be interested. This is totally the wrong attitude and I vowed never to endorse that kind of feeling from anyone who would work with me in my own company in the future.
Is there value to a performance appraisal?
There is if you make sure there is! Appraisals, when used in the positive are an opportunity to;
- Review past performance and gauge where an employee is at that time
- Allow for future planning and development to be mapped out
- Set goals and targets and plan how they can be achieved
- Identify areas where further development is required
- Sow seeds for longer term development
If there are negative aspects of performance to be addressed and they are kept to this one yearly meeting the knock on effect causes further damage. Yet, if follow up had taken place at the time, the issues would already be resolved. I remember one manager I worked with seemed to enjoy dishing out all the things I had done wrong over the previous 12 months, most of the examples I couldn’t actually remember so had no way of working out how I could have done things differently.
What was missing was the right amount of preparation on both sides. I hadn’t spent time with the manager throughout the year, or not enough for them to have seen first hand what my strengths and possible weaknesses were. Had the manager had a coaching style of leadership I would have been much more aware and in turn much more productive. Attending the meeting, I wasn’t fully aware of what to expect, so when things were thrown in to the arena, I could only act on the information presented at that time.
It’s much easier to re-train or work with a current employee than engage the services of a new one. The cost implications alone should guide a manager to bring out the best of the team/people they are currently working with. In my own business, when we are looking to employ someone, even on a freelance basis we use a personality profiling system that gives an extremely accurate indication of the skills and the work ethics a person has. We use a system called DISC and I truly believe that this has prevented us, as a small business, from making some very costly hiring mistakes. It’s not just beneficial for new employees but also for building a strong team, one that performs and makes a difference to the business as a whole.
We spend a lot of time at work so being able to work well with those around us has other benefits. A team that feels they have ownership for their role are more efficient than people who just plod along, performing tasks without any actual buy in.
Appraisals aren’t one off events, they should be part of an ongoing process that also encompasses motivation and personal development for the employee. Appraisals are also a way to implement change within the organisation and can be done without adding the fear factor. No one really embraces change when they don’t feel part of it! Discussing performance is about behaviour and not personality, the lines in my own past appraisals were crossed and I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth. A resentful employee is a destructive influence on those they work with, yet it can be so easily avoided with proper organisation and planning.
Perhaps I now consider myself ‘unemployable’ but had I been allowed to grow and develop in the corporate world, I may never have had the guts to set up on my own and create my own role in the business world.
