Performance appraisal

The above cartoon kind of portrays the image which an employee shares about the performance appraisal process. At the recent SHRM India Chennai forum on 22/05/10. An enthusiastic bunch of professionals, consultants, Academicians and students tried to address the burning questions of Performance Management systems which often become the base for most Dilbert lampoons. We wanted to probe these questions

# What are the key expectations of a PMS system

# What are the major roadblocks in implementing an effective HR system

# How do we remove the roadblocks and what are the techniques which we can follow

# What will be the effects after removing the roadblocks and some effects which we can see

The members sat around tables trying to find out the various ways of answering this issue and finally we reached on this conclusion

*The system will be effective only when it is credible and for that we need to cut down on the subjectivity part of it

*Time we had a change and looked at a performance appraisal process as handing out report cards but more as a Talent Management with a view of finding the best employees and keeping them.

*To analyze if there are avenues of a co-creation of a PMS system

And finally we were deliberating on the issues of change in the system and how can we facilitate the change but that is where sometimes i felt out of sync we often look at changing the system but what we should rather realize that change is not something which can happen overnight it may take months or even years to convince the top management and then the employees about a new system which can come in place till that time we need to find some "Jugaad" to ensure the system runs effectively.

There was one nice point which was intriguing was the question of in how many sectors is pay liked with performance and in most of the manufacturing sectors which is like the backbone of our country it is not and the second one was if there are any punitive actions which are taken against any appraiser for not completing the process of appraisal. We give them warnings and memos but do we penalize them ? if we may what will be the effects but does this kind of policing approach bring out best results or does it cause hatred towards HR.

The happiest part was that i got a chance to document a case on the real time change in PMS and I believe once it is done i can share it with all


Cheers

Arvind !!