A cartoon I saw recently describes performance appraisals as the event that “causes managers to lose sleep the night before, and employees to stay up the night after”. I think we’d all agree that appraisals aren’t wildly popular with anyone, but often we’ve found the problem to be in the “how” and not the “what”. In fact, a January survey of colleagues of LTC Performance demonstrated that 57% of the respondents recognize “a need to improve their organization’s Performance Appraisal/Development system in 2009 to achieve the results they are seeking”. I guess this is telling us that more than half of the folks responding think they could (and should!) do a better job of giving employees the kind of helpful and objective information they need to help the organization achieve its goals. From our experience, most every organization could simplify the process, improve the execution, and yield dramatic improvement. Especially this year, everyone in the organization should be pulling his or her weight to make a difference. Some simple, practical tools and training can make a big difference.
Here are a few things to think about whether you are considering minor tweaks, or a major overhaul to your Performance Development system…Ask yourself these key questions:
- Are the purpose and benefits of Performance Development understood at all levels in our organization?
- Do our leaders hold themselves and others accountable?
- Is the system linked to the strategic direction of our organization? Does the system focus on the past or the future?
- Is our process flexible and adaptable?
- Are our people trained on the purpose and the workings of Performance Development?
- Is the system administratively simple?
- Is the process seen as an annual “event” or an ongoing communication process?
- Are Performance Development meetings held in a timely manner?
- Do meetings typically involve employees being surprised?
- Does our program yield a strong return on investment for the time spent by employees and managers in planning for and completing the review?
If you don’t like your own answers to the questions above, it’s time to dive in. Once you’ve established a clear, simple, consistent system, everyone will get a good night’s sleep.
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