Nomdeplume

A routine experience for people with experience and a unique experience for the first timers or entry-level employees in an organization is the year-end performance level appraisals. In small firms numbering less than 10 the phenomenon if existent is just what the owner of the firms perception is about the person being appraised. In government organizations the appraisals are not two-way communications but mostly the manager of the group presenting the performance reports about appraisees to the management. Well, in the case of MNCs, mere perception of the performance of employees does not work, as every other process in the MNC goes, this perception also needs to be backed up with data and a perceivably just process. The HR dept. in an MNC tries very hard to make the process just for the long serving employees and the ones that join the company laterally. Alas, at the end of the exercise it’s always considered a cliché, employees ending up with the same old grudge and disappointments.
What is the result of the appraisals are usually standard rhetoric, find some of them below..
1. Take up more responsibility. can hear this at level in the hierarchy of the organization. This is pretty much standard because the person hearing this can't refute this. If an appraise says that he has already taken up responsibilities, some of the appraisers responsibility can be comfortably added.
2. Need to manage time efficiently: Again a pretty standard claptrap. Appraisers might be heard saying that appraisees must be able to forecast the danger of the project missing the deadline because of some requirement change that is going to be suggested by the client the day before the project is going to be delivered to the client. ( I wonder if there are any smart confrontation against this)
3. Be more assertive: Here again, appraisers play the trick here, if an employee is already assertive they say the person is rude and he should control is temper and be considerate to others and if the person is quietly efficient then you hear indictment that the person should be strong and more assertive.
4. Improve communication skills: Though most of the point 3 applies here, this comment might be staring at your face when you might have committed a mistake in a written communication to the client or if you uttered / stammered during the teleconference with the customer. This again is a pretty much run of the mill comment thrown at you when the appraiser finds not other valid reason to bring your point down.

This list can grow long with the platitudes that appraisers churn each year against appraisers, but to put things in perspective, essentially appraisal is an account of the perception that the appraiser has over the appraisee. So the person who is able to impress/help the appraiser gets a favourable perception and hence a favourable rating. This process is skewed against the consistent performers in an organization because a smart worker can benefit by doing better work towards the period before the appraisal process earning better points / perks. Appraisees also need to do their homework regularly, they need to constantly evaluate their performance against their peers and try to improve. The evaluation can also include how the immediate superior perceives a person contribution in comparison to his peers. This should eliminate a lot of grievance after the appraisal process. Appraisal is fundamentally a perception an X person has against Y person. If the perception is way off the mark then the appraisal meeting should be utilized to bridge the gap. Most of the times appraisers are constricted by the dynamics of the company and some times the dynamics are very strange. Performance is a reality; forget everything else, its difficult to measure non-performance than performance.