Aren’t appraisals that wonderful chance for people to communicate with their managers, to give and get feedback in a way that’s vital to personal productivity and the health of the organisation? Norman Thomas, director of TV Choice, is an educational filmmaker and producer of a new series of short films called People In Organisations. These examine HR issues in the modern organisation and question the validity of this statement arguing that: “All too often appraisals are the most unhelpful, demeaning, counter-productive periods of time a member of staff can spend with another member of staff – bad for them and bad for their employer, too. It is estimated that about 80 per cent of the organisations in the UK use some sort of appraisal system. How successful they are nobody knows. How destructive they are nobody knows either.”
In his article “Warning – Appraisals can damage your Health”, Thomas refers to a person by the name of Judith, who used to work in Human Resources in a housing association and who commented: “Often an appraisal is used as a tool to bring an employee into line – almost beating them with that stick. In effect they’re saying: ‘You haven’t performed in some way or I’m annoyed with you in some way, and I’ll use the appraisal to get back at you’.”
Then there is Derek, a manager in a retail company, who recalls a typical example: “My boss said on my appraisal report that I wasn’t a people person. But my role was to deal with people on a daily basis, so that was key to my role. My confidence was completely shattered and I really started to be quite critical about myself. It destroyed my productivity.”
“You don’t want to look bad, that’s the thing,” says another person interviewed by Thomas for the purpose of these films. “Sometimes you might not even highlight the areas you think you might need training in. If you say too much, they might think you’re not any good, and the next time they’re making somebody redundant it might be you.”
Of course appraisals can work, explains Thomas and there are companies who pride themselves on their appraisal systems, think they’re absolutely vital, and go in for lots of them. Here Thomas cites the case of Centor, a highly successful insurance company based in London, which have monthly as opposed to yearly appraisal interviews each taking around 10 to 15 minutes. Their idea is that problems aren’t left to fester but picked up quickly and dealt with promptly. Managing director Neil Walton is very pleased with the results of these monthly appraisal interviews: “It gave us a chance to work out if that member of staff was doing the right job, if were they sitting on the ‘right seat on the bus’.”
Thomas goes further, this time citing the case of General Mills UK, the subsidiary of the multinational famous for its Betty Crocker and Jolly Green Giant brands, whose appraisals come even faster – sometimes even weekly – a process of “constant communication”. As one General Mills’ employee explained: “You’ve got that constant feedback, constant appraisal, whereas if you only had them once every three months or once a month I think a lot of things would fall through the cracks.”
“But – and this is a big but,” argues Thomas, both General Mills and Centor have carefully worked out HR policies, and invest a lot of time and resources in getting it right. Without this kind of investment, appraisals can go disastrously wrong, he warned, explaining that those appraisals linked to bonuses and pay rises are particularly mistaken, providing the ultimate disincentive for an appraisee to tell anything but the truth. One of the big benefits an appraisal is supposed to bring is to highlight areas in which they could benefit from training. But unfortunately, as Thomas rightly puts it, often the exact opposite happens.
Thomas goes on to say that one of the major mistakes some organisations make is in applying appraisals regardless of the individual personalities of their staff. Mariette Castellino, a coaching expert says that it’s all about a “spectrum” of personalities. At one end of this spectrum, she explains, is where you find people who are “very internally referenced who know when they’ve done a good job, and to tell them they’ve done a good job is just patronising as far as they’re concerned. At the other end of the spectrum are those people who need to know you’ve noticed they’ve done a good job”. It’s what sometimes called “the artist and waiter” syndrome.
“The internally referenced person is the artist,” explains Castellino. “‘I know I’ve done a fabulous performance. You don’t need to tell me. And if you like it and I don’t, then you’re obviously not a good judge’.”
“On the other hand, externally referenced people are like your ideal waiter,” she says – “they desperately want you to tell them how you feel about the service they’re delivering and would be horrified if you didn’t give them feedback.”
But all this takes careful consideration and time. Unfortunately, very often some organisations apply their appraisal systems bluntly, unaware of the impact they have on their employees or the damage they’re inflicting on their organisation. Here Thomas quotes famous quality guru W. Edwards Deming, who was strongly opposed to using performance appraisals at all. In fact, Deming emphasised that forced rankings and other merit ratings that breed internal competition are bad management because they undermine motivation and breed contempt for management among people who, at least at first, were doing good work. He argued that these systems require leaders to label many people as poor performers even though their work is well within the range of high quality. Finally, Deming advised that when people get unfair negative evaluations, it can leave them “bitter, crushed, bruised, battered, desolate, despondent, dejected, feeling inferior, some even depressed, unfit for work for weeks after receipt of the rating, unable to comprehend why they are inferior”.
When Performance Appraisals are done well they can be one of the most powerful tools for enhancing your employee’s performance and your business’ profits. As such they require careful consideration and thought, as it is not only important for employees to know how they measure up to management’s expectations, but more so the appraisal plays a crucial role in considerations for advancements, raises, rewards and layoffs. Besides, if the employee is appraised unfairly, it could result in the employee losing motivation and confidence, or even losing that employee for good.
And finally, as Aubrey C. Daniels, founder and CEO of management consulting firm Aubrey Daniels & Associates (ADA), an internationally recognised author, speaker and expert on management and human performance issues rightly explains: “The best performance appraisal is the one that is done every day. While this may seem onerous for a small business, it’s becoming increasingly necessary, not just as a way to justify a raise or a termination, but because it will allow you to do things that will increase performance and morale.
Measurement allows you to see small changes in performance so that you can do things in a timely way to either correct performance or to provide positive reinforcement for improvement or for a job well done. ‘‘
Ms Camilleri is a researcher at the Foundation for Human Resources Development (FHRD)