The Hidden Reality of Performance Ratings

The existence of a performance appraisal process is to "to improve employee performance and ultimately enhance organizational effectiveness."

As part of the Performance Appraisal process, managers and leaders are asked to evaluate the team member's performance and rate individual performance across a rating scale of Poor to Excellent Performance.  Most organizations use the ratings to decide how to reward or punish the employees. Here's the reality (Unpopular Thought No. 1):

All ratings are biased and not indicative of reality, but of a situation  (partly due to bias) during a particular point in time.  It doesn't matter if there is a numerical value attached to the rating. Leaders are consciously or unconsciously aware of this.

Sadly, in some industries, the appraisal is considered to be a guarantee of an increment and / or a promotion, but not about development, which is the whole point, since the organization would benefit along with the individual.

During my HR career, I found managers and leaders who delight in being very strict in their assessments and ratings, and those who were lenient in their ratings. So of course, these extreme ratings tend to reviewed by HR and Senior Management in most organizations.

For the lenient assessors i.e. those who give their team members a high rating, I would ask them when these highly rated team members would be ready to take over their role.  The response I got was an immediate 'no', along with the words "not so soon" and a list of the employee's faults. They didn't really have a transition plan (or knew how to make one) for the team member's growth.  This of course, doesn't help the team member or the organization.

For those strict assessors, I would ask them to review if the lowest rating was really applicable. The were also questions about the support provided to help the employee improve.  The rating however did not always change.  A Performance Improvement Plan was sometimes put in place, but most times, it didn't help the employee to positively shift performance.  Lots of issues in this aspect due to how a PIP and the appraisal process is perceived

Consider this scenario where managers / leaders rate their team members low or very low, and rate themselves very high or at the highest rating.  Here's Unpopular Thought No. 2:

Low ratings indicate that the goals of the department or function are not met.  Therefore, there is zero basis on which they can rate themselves high. Secondly, if the team ratings are low but the manager's ratings are high, then it's clear that the manager has not been attending to the critical role of grooming team members and enabling team member's performance. This becomes a failure of the manager / leader in achieving their goals and disqualifies them from the highest possible rating.

This situation can happen mainly when "people / team management" is not mentioned or clearly articulated in the goalsheet / KPIs.  Some organizations that face many resignations, so they include an attrition "target" in manager's and leaders's goalsheets, but not much else.

For those thinking, that "HR hired these guys and I had no choice in their selection", please remember that this is a systemic problem related to the organization's process, where you as leader / manager have an absolute right to take a stand against something that hampers your teams productivity - so speak up and block your time appropriately to become a part of the hiring process.

If this article, raised a thought or two within you, connect with me on +919820155778 for a discussion or for workshops on Performance Management Systems, Making Feedback Effective, The Selection Discussion, and other topics that will help your organization to effectively navigate it's way to its goals.