Put on the humane face, cut off the old biases.

Performance Appraisal: Put on the humane face, cut off the old biases.

What is the biggest fear in today’s managers? What is it that gives them sleepless nights? What is it that can make a subordinate dislike his manager?

“Managers are uncomfortable when they are put in the position of ‘playing God,’” explained Douglas McGregor while portraying manager’s resistance undertaking the conventional kind of appraisal of employee performance. He designed an approach in which he stressed on the importance of the subordinates establishing their personal short-term goals and evaluating their performance themselves. As a consequence of this, interviews with manager focus on the employee’s strengths, rather than his shortcomings and they tend less to digress into personalities. Performance appraisal within management ranks has been standardised in many companies during the past 20 years and is currently being adopted by many others, often as a vital part of management development programs. The more the method is used, the more scepticism it attracts due to the unstated assumptions which lie behind it.

With deep research one can find that a number of people both in education and in industry share such scepticism. This article by Douglas McGregor, therefore, had two purposes:

1. To examine the conventional performance appraisal plan which requires the manager to pass judgment on the personal worth of subordinates?

2. To describe an alternative which places on the subordinate the primary responsibility for establishing performance goals and appraising progress toward them?

The Formal performance appraisal plans are designed to meet three needs, one for the organization and two for the individual:

1. They provide systematic judgments to back up salary increases, promotions, transfers, and sometimes demotions or terminations.

2. They are a means of telling a subordinate how he is doing, and suggesting needed changes in his behaviour, attitudes, skills, or job knowledge; they let him know “where he stands” with the boss.

3. They also are being increasingly used as a basis for the coaching and counselling of the individual by the superior.

These above objectives are very much in practice even today. Performance management is often taken into account by management scholars, human resources consultants and labour lawyers as a critical and crucial process in the management of personnel. Despite weight age on performance management, this is the one area of human resources management that most managers and supervisors begrudge. Some might even argue that the reason for this loathing is due to the judgemental aspect involved in the process. Saying otherwise, managers and supervisors do not relish the task of judging an employee’s performance and employees do not like to be judged. The fact that performance evaluations occur once a year may also contribute to this displeasure. This latter argument is quite plausible. Think about it, you as a manager are saddled with the responsibility of making judgements on a subordinate’s performance in the past year. For many employees, this may be perceived as a time when his/her superiors take the opportunity to lambaste him or her for a deficiency in performance which occurred earlier in the year. For some managers, the yearly performance appraisal meeting may be seen as an opportune time to unleash the wrath of God on an employee who may not have met the manager’s expectations. The fact that both parties have not discussed any performance issues over the course of the year and that it is only discussed on that one annual occasion is likely the biggest culprit as to why performance management is equally resented in many workplaces by both managers and employees.

So… how do we resolve this negative view?

We come across many training seminars that recommend performance management may be perceived more positively if following simple steps are undertaken:

• Conduct performance management regularly and not just once a year.
• Do not use performance management simply as a tool for punishment and discipline, but rather as a tool for commending and reinforcing good behaviour and accomplishments and as a valuable tool for professional development and growth.
• Ensure that there are rewards attached to accomplishment and consequences associated with work deficiencies and breaches.
• Ensure that new employees are adequately oriented to the organization and their work units.
• Train managers/supervisors in the art of conducting performance appraisal interviews as a collaborative problem-solving exercise with employees, rather than simply a forum for handing down judgement.
• Ensure that employees have a clear understanding of the organization’s expectations and performance standards.
• Allow employees opportunities to hone their skills for purposes of upward and/or lateral career mobility within the organization;
• Evaluate your management personnel on their ability to carry out sound performance management methods.
• Design a performance appraisal system that enable both superiors and subordinates the opportunity to constructively look at performance improvements by identifying training and developmental means.
• Develop an organizational culture that values and rewards superior performance.

By changing the way people view performance management, the organization will realize greater increase in productivity and efficiency, while creating a positive and rewarding workplace. This will create a win-win scenario for both the managers and the employees.