Performance evaluation is one of the few important activities that are stacked up to a team leader’s table once every year in corporates. Those who are not aware of the term ‘Performance Evaluation’, it is the evaluation/assessment of the employees performance against expected performance that is generally documented by the team leader at the end of the year. This documentation is an essential component for employees in deciding their career graph and their appraisal in a corporate.
Recently I was reading the Harvard Business Review (June 2015 edition) and found that a similar article was written and was discussed that, major firms like Deloitte and Adobe, have scrapped off their traditional performance evaluation system with a more interpersonal and a more close-knit performance appraisal system, where the employer is responsible to talk and know more about the employee and discuss where they are good and which areas need improvements. Studies show that due to this process the firms not only saved a large sum of money spent on these traditional systems but also the employee satisfaction rate increased.
From my personal experience of studying in my b-school and working at a large financial institution, I can tell you that performance appraisal is a very important aspect for every employee, not only for his/her career growth but for his/her personal development as well. I have worked under team leaders and also worked as a team leader, and every time I tried to know more about myself and rectify me before I could rectify others in my team. So if the team leader is not good, it becomes a tough bet for the team members to work and comply with the issues that the leader may create.
Often times in large conglomerates and MNCs, a ‘matrix’ team structure is followed, where employees from different functional areas are clubbed together for a specific project for 3-4 months and the team is dissolved once the project is done. This estimates to around 4 teams per year for a single employee. This system does not let the employee build a good network or a good base for his/her performance and its assessment. The employee barely gets time to make himself/herself noticeable to the team members, needless to say to the team leader. Now at this situation, getting a real sketch of performance evaluation about a specific employee from each of the four team leaders is next to impossible.
These situations create problems to the company and its foundations when the best talents leave and no company can afford to lose a top talent to its competitor in this job market. This not only weakens the workforce but also demoralize the existing talent and encourages them to practice slack in their work. They try to exhibit behaviors which portray that they are working just as to please their team leaders for their appraisal, when actually they are non productive at that time to the firm.
I believe that a mentor-associate relationship can be the best solution to this problem, where the associate can work without fear of making mistakes and the mentor takes full responsibility to rectify the associate at every step. Evaluating and assessing the associate at every level not only prevents further mistakes by him/her, but also strengthens his/her trust towards the firm and the team leader. This promotes long-lasting relationship between the firm and the associate, as now the firm tries to nurture the talent and not try to make them fall in line by force. This makes the associate the most productive aspect for the firm.
As it is always said, great companies become great not only because of their financial statements, but by their actions towards their most important stakeholders – here, towards their employees.
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Acknowledgement:
Thanks to Harvard Business Review (June 2015 edition) for the article “How Deloitte Killed Forced Rankings” by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall,April
Arnab Pandey 