Performance Appraisal Anguish
At a company I was doing some work for, a senior budget manager, who reported to the company's chief executive officer, informed me that he was disappointed because a salary increase popped up in his paycheck without the benefit of a performance appraisal. I was also disappointed because I had helped the company develop and implement what the human resources vice president and I thought was an ironclad performance appraisal process that guaranteed constructive, fair, accurate, and timely appraisals combined with employee feedback opportunities. Unfortunately, the company's most senior executive had seemingly sidestepped the procedure.
We solved the problem by telling the CEO that a "routine" audit of the performance appraisal process revealed his sin of omission and politely reminded him that he should probably be the one most committed to the newly established performance appraisal procedure. Embarrassed by our "discovery," the CEO quickly gave the manager a favorable performance appraisal justifying the salary increase, indicated performance areas that could use some improvement, gave the manager a couple of suggestions on ways to advance his career, and asked for some thoughtfull feedback on the appraisal.
Nevertheless, the budget manager later told me privately that he thought the entire process was an abject failure and that it would be sometime before he took anything coming out of the company's human resources department at face value. Ooops!
The biggest problem with periodic, especially annual, performance appraisals may be that the results often come as a surprise to the individual subjected to the performance appraisal. Consiously or unconsiously, managers and supervisors often hold back constructive criticism and/or compliments during the performance period and suddenly reveal the bad news, good news, or combination thereof, during an annual performance appraisal session. Confused, those being evaluated often leave the session thinking, "Wow! I didn't know I was doing that badly!" or "Wow! I didn't know he/she appreciated my work so much!" In both cases, the process failed the evaluator, the individual being evaluated, and the organization for which they both work.
In the perfect performance appraisal world, working people know from day to day how the people to whom they report view their performance. During each performance cycle, evaluators continually offer guidance, constructive criticism, and support to those they are responsible for supervising. As a result, the annual performance appraisal session is simply a review and confirmation of prior performance issues and an opportunity for both sides to discuss and establish
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