Archive for the ‘Appraisals and Performance Reviews’ Category

Does 360 Degree Feedback Work? What Do You Think?

Monday, November 30th, 2009

I had an email from a Grapevine reader a while back asking what she could do about some very unpleasant feedback she had had.

Roughly, it suggested that she did a poor job, was bad at prioritising and often missed important things.

In the past, all the feedback she had had was about how well she was doing. She had never had any feedback like this before and was completely distraught. Worst of all, it was anonymous and there was no way of finding out what the individual meant, who they were or what they were referring to.

The feedback had come through a 360 Degree Feedback process that her company had introduced.

360 Degree Feedback

Just to clarify, 360 Degree Feedback refers to getting feedback on your performance from all levels of people you work with; managers, peers and those working for you.

Another Example

I worked with a client that had called me in because they had introduced a 360 feedback system and it had caused some serious problems. The MD had decided to ‘have a go’ first himself to show that it would be fine.

Unfortunately he got some feedback indicating all was not well. He then went on to ’share’ the information he had been given, but omitted to mention any of the less favourable comments.

Unfortunately, for those who had written those comments, this immediately destroyed the credibility of the whole system.

The Problem

In this case one of the main problems was the design of the system and the poor quality of the questions. They were really a licence for anyone to launch a rant about whatever they liked, instead of a way of getting useful, factual information that would help people to develop.

Training and Guidance

In my view people should not be asked to give this kind of information without, at the very least, some kind of guidance on how to do it. I have trained enough people on giving feedback to know that many people need some help in this area.

This is particularly true when they are looking for improvement or have problems with an individual. Any fool can moan and complain, but it takes a little skill to be clear about what is required in a helpful way.

The system (or ’solution’ as it’s often called) also needs to be very carefully designed, especially the questions. If not, it can cause many problems.

A Question For You: What Are Your Experiences of 360 Degree Feedback?

I’m asking this question because it came up in our Appraisals Teleseminar last week. Rachel, who works for the Alzheimer’s Society, and was taking part in the Teleseminar, wondered if anyone had got experience of this they were willing to share.

I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who have had both good and bad experiences in this area. So, please let me know, on the blog so we can all share this, what those experiences are and what you would recommend/not recommend.

I’m sure many of you have opinions on this topic. You probably also have your own questions. Please add them here.

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Posted in Appraisals and Performance Reviews, Feedback, Improving Performance, Management Skills, Training | 15 Comments »

Are You In The Talent Pool?

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Why I Left Two Really Good Jobs

After nearly four years in my first job, I left. I needed to see something different.

When she heard I was leaving, Joan, the head of HR, called me to a meeting.

‘We were just about to promote you.’  She said and went on to tell me about all the great opportunities I was leaving behind. A few years later, I had a similar experience. I handed in my notice and was summoned to see the Group Manufacturing Director.

‘I had you in line to be the next Manufacturing Director at your site when your boss, Paul, moved on.’ He told me. ‘I’m very sorry you’re leaving.’

What these situations have in common is that neither of them had told me about the plans they had for my career. Had I known, I certainly would not have left when I did.

Talent Pools

Many of our customers have ‘talent pools’. At a very good lunch recently I was discussing this with an old friend. He’s an extremely talented individual (I mustn’t be too over the top because I know he reads this and it might go to his head, but he is very good).

The problem is, at his organisation, it really isn’t very clear if you are in the Talent Pool or not. And even if it is clear, no one really knows why they are in or out.

No manager is able to say to their team member ‘If you want to be in the Talent Pool you need to do this.’ Which is what they really should be able to say.

So the whole system is the source of rumour and misunderstanding (at best).

Should You Have A Talent Pool?

A good question. You need to ask yourself why you want a Talent Pool and how it will help.

In my view you should certainly have a clear idea of the possible potential of each employee. You should be clear what the opportunities are for them and what they need to do in order to meet the requirements for opportunities.

You should also know what talent you are going to need over the next few years and be matching that up with the people you already have where possible.

It may be that you want to identify people who have the potential (as far as you can tell) to join the Senior Management Team or the Directors.

Why Do People Keep It A Secret?

I’d like to think this is just incompetence rather than a deliberate attempt to annoy people. Usually it’s because the criteria for being in the talent pool are woolly and no one really understands them.

Often it’s because people don’t want to upset those who aren’t in the Talent Pool. Personally I think it’s worse for people to waste time speculating when knowing the answer would be quite useful. It almost implies that the company is ashamed of having a Talent Pool if they won’t let you know if you are in it.

Or it’s a way of wielding power over people.

Generally this approach just backfires (as it did in my case).

Clear Criteria

In many cases organisations have a box divided into nine squares and managers are asked to put their people into the correct box. The top right hand box means you’re in the pool.  What managers should be doing is assessing the skills of each individual carefully and objectively. However, only some managers are skilled enough to do this properly.

So you end up with seriously flawed information. If you’re going to do this, you need to have extremely clear criteria for each box so that managers can make an objective assessment and be confident in the assessments of their colleagues.

Unless there is this trust that all the assessments are carried out objectively and to the same standard, people will not have confidence in the system.

So if you are going to do it you must have clear and open criteria so you can make decisions easily. This is not as easy as it sounds, which is probably why people fail to do it so often.

What’s Important

In these situations you first need to be clear about what it is you want to achieve. So work out your objective. Then work out what’s important about the way you do it.

Once you’ve done that, you can start setting up a Talent Pool in a way that is appropriate for your organisation. I would urge you to do it in an open, straightforward way if you are going to do it.

Usually we want to improve the skills of people in our company, so there’s generally no harm in letting people know what skills we need them to develop and why.

Once you have your Talent Pool you need to be clear what you are going to do with it.

I have seen many cases where these people have left because expectations were not fulfilled. I’ve also seen cases where they were badly thought through.

In one particular case a company identified lots of very talented people and gave them the opportunity to get extra experience and training, but then, for some strange reason, others in the company were not willing to give them the opportunities they wanted, so many left. It’s hard to calculate the cost of this to the company involved.

Are You In The Talent Pool?

It’s always worth asking your manager about this. He or she may not be able to tell you, or may be reluctant. But it might avoid you making the mistake of leaving just because you are unclear about your prospects.

Of course you must remember that, however fantastic your skill set, sometimes there just aren’t any opportunities for you in your current organisation. You might as well find out now.

Posted in Appraisals and Performance Reviews, Communication, Feedback, Improving Performance, Management Skills, Training | 2 Comments »

Should Your Objectives Include Your ‘Day Job’?

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

This is a discussion I have had about a thousand times (or so it seems to me) with people on objectives-setting courses, workshops and
presentations I’ve given.

So let’s tackle it to dispel any doubt that may be in your
mind on this one.

Arguments people come up with

‘Your day job is what you are being paid for so it shouldn’t
be in your objectives.’

‘People should know what they are supposed to do in their
day job, they shouldn’t need objectives to tell them.’

‘Objectives should be stretching.’

First let’s be clear what objectives are really for:

They are there so that each individual in your organisation
knows exactly what they personally need to achieve in order for the
organisation to achieve its goals.

That’s the real purpose of objectives.

If write objectives in this way, you can cascade your objectives down
through the organisation effectively so that all the objectives ‘add up’ to
give you the whole. In this way your organisation is more likely to succeed.

If you only include the ‘extras’ you have to ask yourself
what the objectives are really there for. What are they for if they if not to help the company to
achieve its overall goals? Please understand that by the ‘goals’ I am including
long terms ones, so development objectives and long term projects are absolutely part of your normal
objectives.

Let’s take each of the usual objections in turn:

‘Your day job is what you are being paid for so it shouldn’t
be in your objectives.’

Yes, your day job IS what you are being paid for.

This has come from some people who don’t really understand
what the purpose of objectives is. I remember years ago, back in my production
management days, when we all had these kinds of objectives.

A week before the appraisals we would all spend some time
trying to find our ‘objectives’. The fact we couldn’t remember them shows you
how vitally important they were. Usually they would be on some crumpled scrap
of paper hidden at the back of a drawer that we hadn’t looked at since they had
been agreed (or simply given to us).

We would then spend the next week trying to get those things
done to the detriment of our ‘day job’. This often meant that things were
unnecessarily delayed and the job we were really paid to do was given a lower
priority than it should have been.

Often the things on this list had been put there purely to
ensure we had the requisite number of objectives. Sometimes they were, by that
time, completely irrelevant.

And, what was worse, much of your ‘performance’ was then
apparently judged on these unaligned, outdated and meaningless objectives
rather than your real contribution to the overall goals (what you were being
paid for).

‘People should know what they are supposed to do in their
day job, they shouldn’t need objectives to tell them.’

Yes, they should, but so often they don’t. You would be
surprised by the number of people who don’t know exactly what they are supposed
to be achieving. Or the objectives focus on the task - just spending time doing things – rather than making sure
what they need to achieve gets done.

And if they know it already, what’s the harm in writing it
down? I’ll tell you. None. It means there is no argument at the end of the year. Actually most of them don’t write it down because they don’t really know what their
objectives are. I know this from the thousands of people who have been through
my workshops on writing objectives. I would estimate that no more than 10% of
the people who come along are really clear about what they have to achieve.

‘Objectives should be stretching.’

This is rubbish. It is not the purpose of objectives to be
stretching. They are just there to tell you what you need to achieve.

However, a good manager will find ways to make them
motivating and to stretch people so that they learn new skills and become more
valuable to the organisation. The stretching bit has been added on by
well-meaning but misguided people who don’t understand what objectives are
really for.

So instead of asking someone who knew, they took a guess.

This is exactly the problem with not having your objectives
being your ‘day job’.

An Example

Imagine my husband and I are having a few friends over to
dinner. Would you really expect my husband to just ‘know’ what ingredients I
needed? Even if I told him the dishes I was planning to make? And would you
expect him to magically arrive with the shopping ready for me to cook the meal?

Of course not. Wonderful though he is, he still needs that
information. It’s always useful to be absolutely clear about what each person
needs to achieve.

Cascade

Unless you have agreed the objectives effectively and
included the ‘day job’ it is impossible to cascade them properly.

The easiest way to do this is to say to your team ‘These are
my objectives. What do you need to achieve in order to make this happen?’

In this way you get properly aligned objectives and everyone
is clear why they are doing what they are doing.

If you don’t include your ‘day job’ how can you possibly
cascade the objectives down the organisation?

You end up with a lot of meaningless statements that are
just there so that people have the right number of objectives. The system becomes a sham. And becomes
one very quickly. You can’t measure performance and you also have trouble
dealing with poor performance.

Why Do So Many Companies Do This?

I expect it’s because they just don’t know any better. Or
they have been badly advised. I
used to think that was how you were supposed to do objectives. That was until I
started working in this field. Then I very quickly realised that the whole
system simply doesn’t work unless you cascade properly and include your ‘day
job’.

Your day job is what you are paid to achieve – and so are
your objectives. They are the same thing (your job description gives you the
areas of responsibility, just in case you were wondering).

Why pay people to do stuff that isn’t helping you to achieve
the company goals? I know I don’t – do you?

Posted in Appraisals and Performance Reviews, Improving Performance, Management Skills, Objectives | 8 Comments »

Possibly The Last Word on Forced Distributions

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Quite some time ago I wrote about forced distributions in performance reviews. This is where a company sets the proportions of people who will receive specific performance review ratings.

They say that a certain percentage of the company and each department, often even down to small teams, must receive a rating so that all the ratings fit a standard distribution or ‘bell curve’.

As a result a number of people will get the lowest rating for their performance.

Last time I wrote about it, I gave various reasons for it being an unsatisfactory strategy.

Since then I have had many comments and discussions about this topic.

The Last Word

Earlier this year we were on holiday with a very old friend of ours, who happens to be a top statistician. So I took the opportunity to ask him what he thought of the ‘forced distribution’.

He laughed at me and looked almost incredulous. ‘Nancy, you have got ‘O’ level maths, haven’t you?’ He asked me. (For those non-UK people or anyone under 40, these were the standard exams for 16 year olds, a bit like OWLs in Harry Potter.)

I nodded.

‘Well, in that case you should know that you only get a normal distribution when you have a RANDOM sample. And if any company really has a random sample of employees, they should be asking some very serious questions about their recruitment processes.’

I could hardly stop laughing. Of course he was absolutely right.

In Defence of the Companies

The trouble is that many companies are in the situation where a large proportion of their employees are getting performance ratings well over those that their performance indicates.

We all know this. We have all seen people getting ‘exceeded expectations’ (not really a very wise choice of words) who we know have hardly achieved their objectives or have done it at the expense of others, or who, for a myriad of reasons, do not deserve this rating.

We have also all seen people who have performed very badly for years and the issues have not even been mentioned, let alone tackled.

So in order to force their managers to do something about this, companies adopt the ‘forced distribution’ in the hope that it will resolve this problem.

Why It Doesn’t Work

The trouble is that many of the people who are penalised unfairly are the very people who have been tackling the performance issues.

The skilled managers who have been recruiting effectively, coaching and training their staff and dealing with any performance issues are then made to give their team members performance ratings that are false. This can completely undermine all the good work they have done.

It can also cause huge resentment amongst the employees and major problems in small teams, demotivating everyone and, as a result, reducing performance.

This is reinforced when people realise that, although the senior managers, or directors form a small team, for some reason, they don’t seem to be part of the forced distribution.

What Can You Do?

The real issue here is poor management skills. Usually from right at the top. (If the managers at the top had effective management skills, they would have been coaching and training their direct reports, the managers who work for them and run the teams and departments where performance is poor, and getting them to tackle performance issues.)

So the key thing is to improve the management skills right at the top. Not by forcing them, but by helping them to learn how to deal with performance issues.

Only when those at the top start doing this is it likely that these practices will start to become commonplace in the organisation.

Clear Standards

You need to make sure everyone has clear objectives and standards of performance. They need to know what, if anything, they need to do to meet those standards.

Reasons for Poor Performance

When I run workshops on how to deal with poor performance I often start with a clip from one of my favourite films: ‘Shaun of the Dead’

If you haven’t seen this film, please do. It’s not the terrifying horror film I thought it was before I saw it. It’s the story of two friends who are living in a world where everyone is being turned into zombies. They are men in their 20s and are completely oblivious to this going on around them. I won’t spoil it for you by telling you any more.

In the clip we see Shaun trying, without success, to run a short meeting in the white goods shop where he works. The manager and his assistant are both off (presumably they have become zombies) and we see Shaun stumble through the meeting, not knowing what to say and failing to stop one of the team members answering his mobile phone and then texting a message.

We then ask why his performance is so poor.

It turns out that the absent manager is completely responsible. How can this be when he isn’t even there?

He clearly has set no standards of performance

Shaun stepped in because no one else did. He was doing his best and taking initiative. The manager had not nominated anyone in his absence

Shaun has clearly had no training in how to do this

There are obviously no objectives

I could go on.

The Manager’s Responsibility

Why is it that many senior managers don’t take responsibility for poor performance in their departments? I think this is because they don’t realise that managing the department and the people in it is their job.

It is their responsibility to ensure that the managers working for them are able to get the performance required; this is what they are being paid for.

Even when they do realise this, many seem unwilling to recognise that they need to improve their skills in this area, instead sending everyone else on the relevant training courses, but not going themselves.

Embarrassment

I can’t begin to count the times I have had people on a training course asking why their manager has not been on the course or why the manager is not practising the skills themselves.

This is a constant source of embarrassment. But it’s also an indication that whoever is at the top of an organisation is also not tackling performance issues.

The Root Of The Problem

Until the person at the top starts to do this, I don’t think you can expect to get issues tackled consistently and effectively in an organisation.

We have all been seeing examples of bankers at the top of their companies who we (quite rightly in my view) think are overpaid. I suggest this problem is not limited to banking. I think a large proportion of a top executive’s pay should depend on their having managed their team effectively including tackling all performance issues.

I think this would be a far more effective way of tackling performance issues than the ‘forced distribution’ and a great deal fairer.

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Posted in Appraisals and Performance Reviews, Improving Performance | 5 Comments »

How Objective Are You? Really?

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Here are the details of a worrying experiment carried out by Max Bazerman of Harvard Business School. Sadly the results won’t surprise you in the slightest.

Auditors

He took 139 auditors from one of the largest accounting firms in the US.

He asked them to evaluate the accounts of a company (we’ll call them Company A) to see if they met the required standards (GAAP). Half were told they had been hired by Company A and the other half, by Company B. Company B was planning to do business with Company A.

The first half were 30% more likely to say that the accounts complied with the required standards than the group ‘hired’ by Company B.

Impartial?

Each group was explicitly asked to provide impartial judgment. They even knew that this task was not linked to any possibility of employment.

In spite of this, their judgment was still impaired.

Imagine what the bias would be if they stood to gain financially.

Another Group Of Auditors We All Know

I heard a woman being interviewed recently who had worked for the same accountants responsible for ‘auditing’ Enron. Unbelievably she was claiming that there was ‘no conflict of interest’ when a large accountancy firm was auditing a company’s accounts and also did other work for that company.

‘The departments are completely different.’ she explained. The interviewer guffawed audibly (unable to get her hand over her mouth in time). The interviewee became almost indignant.

Even though the interviewer tried her best, she could not hide her astonishment that someone could be so naive.

Don’t Get Too Complacent

I shared the interviewer’s view till I started reading up more on this topic. The trouble is, we are all programmed for self-interest. It’s the old ‘The fish are the last ones to see the water’ problem. We can all recognise the bias of others (those of us living in the UK are being bombarded with news about MPs’ expenses claims at the moment so have plenty of experience in this) but are blind to our own self-interest.

How Objective Are You?

This week I talked to a client, we’ll call him Tony, who has been asked to apply for a more senior job in his company. He knows he won’t get it. He is well aware that they are just following the procedures.

When I asked why he thought he wouldn’t get it, he told me that he knew the man interviewing him favored another candidate. As it happens I also know the other candidate. In my (no doubt completely objective) view it is Tony who is easily the best qualified.

Unfortunately I also know the manager who is conducting the interview and feel sure Tony is right.

Tony was asking for help with his CV and has put a great deal of effort into it already. The trouble is, when it comes to internal applicants, I have a deep suspicion that the manager won’t even read the CVs. Why would he? He is convinced he knows all he needs to know about the candidate.

What Can You Do?

Systems

Wherever you can, set up systems or change them so people are not likely to have conflicting interests.
I think we all need to make sure we are aware that we are biased, and then take appropriate precautions. Some simple ones are:
Set up systems that make objectivity more likely. In my view it is ridiculous that firms can choose their own auditors. Ideally they should be chosen at random every year so that there is no incentive for the auditors to smooth over anything (or indeed blatantly lie).

Ask yourself these questions:

  • What are the criteria for making this decision? (For example; does it have to be someone who has a particular set of skills, something that will give a particular result…)
  • Which of these options is more likely to be attractive to me personally, given my personal interests?
  • Which of these interests conflicts with my interests?

Then ask someone else to answer those questions for you and make sure you listen to the answers.

Set Up Tests
I heard about a teacher who used to tell his pupils always to read the instructions at the top of the exam paper carefully before starting the exam. Of course, none of them did, because they had done lots of practice papers so they ‘knew’ what was coming.

To get round this problem he included the instruction ‘Do not attempt question 1’ in the first paragraph. He gave no marks for the answers to that question. The hapless pupils learned the lesson the hard way.

A Suggestion

My suggestion is that, if you are in a position to, you set up a few bits of information to check if people really are evaluating the information they have effectively.

For example, with internal recruitments, if you are in HR and are responsible for gathering CVs you could always add in something harmless but unusual like ‘Played role of Mickey Mouse at Disneyland’ into the CV of a candidate the interviewer knows.

Then, when you are checking the interviewer has all the paperwork and is prepared, see if they spotted it. At this point, of course, you need to let them know it was simply a test and is not true. However, if they have not noticed, you need to explain to them how they should be preparing.

You need to check what their criteria are for the recruitment and exactly how they are measuring the candidates against those criteria. I think it would also be perfectly acceptable to ask them about their personal interests.

In Summary

Remember that in most decisions you make, your own interests will be invisibly biasing your judgment, just as much as those of the people around you, whose bias is more obvious (and in some cases astonishingly blatant).

Set up systems to mitigate this bias. Make sure you have clear criteria and discuss them with others. Ask others how you might be biased in your decisions. Get them to help you see the blindingly obvious.

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Posted in Appraisals and Performance Reviews, Improving Performance | 1 Comment »

Why You Will Never Reach Your Full Potential – You May Be Surprised

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

First, Maths

I used to teach maths to people in the factory where I worked. They
needed to know how to use the ‘resistor colour code’. This is a set
of coloured bands printed on a resistor that tells you what the
resistance is. Each colour has a digit; yellow is 2, orange is 3,
red is 4, and so on.

In order to be able to read the code you need to have a basic
understanding of decimals. I was amazed at how few people had a
grasp of decimals, given that we had been using a decimal coinage
system for many years by that time.

I would often find that, when I sat down with someone who was
experiencing significant difficulties, the problem was the same.

They would tell me: ‘I’m really bad at maths.’
‘How do you know?’ I would respond.
The answer was almost always the same and uttered with compete
conviction: ‘Because when I was seven, my teacher told me ‘You are
no good at maths.”

This I found to be utterly shocking. My father, who was a head
teacher for many years and before that a brilliant maths teacher,
had never allowed thoughts like that to enter our heads as children.

He had a stunning record of taking pupils to great levels of
achievement. So, whenever I encountered one of these unfortunate
individuals I would phone my father and ask for his help in
explaining whatever concept was holding the person back. He never
failed them.

A Picnic

Then, a while later, I joined my boss and his wife at the company
picnic. She was a teacher and had in her care children of seven and
eight.

‘You can tell at seven when a child is useless at maths.’ She told
me confidently.

I am sure she heard my gasp of horror. Here was a teacher who was
actively reducing the chances for her pupils.

Why You Can’t Reach Your True Potential
I expect you are thinking that this title is a bit negative and not
the kind of thing you have come to expect from me. I hope so.

Strangely, this is good news, not the bad news it sounds like. Read
on to find out why, and why that teacher was so wrong.

Attention Density

What do you know about attention? It’s one of those weird things.
We instinctively know what it is (and when we’re not getting it or
doing it).

You may remember your teachers telling you to pay attention (or
perhaps your partner). You may have told your children to pay
attention.

Attention Skills

Attention is about several things:
Your ability to
* select one aspect of the environment (internal or external)
* focus on an aspect of the environment
* release your attention and focus on something else

People who have attention problems can have difficulty with one or
more areas.

Attention Density

This is how much attention you are paying to something.

Your Brain

We can all imagine situations where a high level of attention
density is required. What’s interesting about it is that what you
pay attention to changes your brain.

This means that if you pay attention to specific areas your brain,
because it is plastic, will become more adept in that area.

This is knows as ‘neural plasticity’. You probably just think of it
as learning. I expect you are familiar with the experiment where
people were blindfolded and had their brains monitored through
various imaging techniques.

Within HOURS the parts of the brain that normally deal with visual
inputs were being re-assigned to other senses.

So just think what happens from days, weeks and months of attention
in specific areas.

Your Potential

It’s very hard to assess anyone’s potential. There are many
examples of people whose teachers told them they were no good or
had ‘no potential’ and they then went on to huge success. Plenty
more were told they would do great things and did not.

How It Works

Let’s imagine that we could put you into a machine that was able to
accurately measure your potential to draw like a Leonardo Da Vinci
and we measured that today as being 21%.

If you were really inspired and practised for a few weeks and we
measured it again, it would have changed and gone up. The more you
practised, the more your potential would increase as your brain
changed.

So your problem is that your potential is becoming greater and
greater, so you would forever be behind your true potential. But
only because you had increased that potential.

What’s so exciting is that we can all increase our potential to do
anything.

Your Organisational Goals

If you asked everyone in your organisation to write down what the
top three goals of your organisation currently are (with no
conferring) what do you think the answers would be?

Would they be the same? Would you have a lot of variety?

I imagine in most of the organisations I’ve worked in, there would
be a huge variety. Often when I’ve asked questions like this all
I’ve had in response is blank stares.

Just Imagine

What do you think would happen if everyone were focussed on
achieving the same thing? What would happen to their brains and
their potential to achieve the goals?

It’s simple enough to do and the results could be spectacular.

Reaching Your Potential

I would suggest that most of the people who reach their potential
only do so because it is so low. So perhaps it would be best to
focus on something that is really worth achieving and just keep
working at it, rather than worrying if you are reaching your ‘true
potential’. And be wary of any teacher who tells your children
that they are useless at anything.

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Posted in Appraisals and Performance Reviews, Objectives | 5 Comments »

Badly Written Comments on Appraisals and Performance Reviews

Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Nancy Slessenger

Nancy Slessenger

Last week I had an email from a Grapevine reader concerned about comments her manager had written on her performance review/appraisal document.

I suggested she send the document through for me to see. When I read it I understood immediately why she was so concerned.

What He Had Written

The comments he had made were opinions and in one case ‘facts’ that looked like evidence of poor performance, but that weren’t when the background was explained.

Have You Had Any Poorly Written Feedback On Your Appraisal?
If you have, I’d love to hear what happened to you.

Two Sides

When I help clients deal with poor performance in their employees one of the first things I ask about is their performance reviews or appraisals. Most of the time, even with performance issues that have been going on for years, there is no mention of this in the written records. (In one case 22 years!)

This usually suggests that the issues have not been tackled or dealt with. It can also mean that the employee has been completely unaware of the problem themselves, so has not done anything to improve.

In several cases (in particular of bullying that has been going on for years) I have seen appraisal forms speaking of ‘exemplary performance’ and given high ratings.

If you have struggled putting appropriate feedback on someone’s form, please let us know by making a comment below.

What Are The Comments In Appraisals For?

To answer this question we need to know what they are going to be used for. For this we really need to go back to the purpose of the appraisal itself.

In my view the purpose of the appraisal or performance review is to put the individual in the best possible position to achieve the following year’s objectives. In order to do that the individual needs to know what he or she needs to do differently (if anything).

Of course, in many organisations the review is also part of the information used to assess pay and bonus payments.

So, should the manager’s remarks be a vague set of general opinions (as was the case from our Grapevine reader’s manager) or should they be factual details of the individual’s achievements against their objectives?

Homework

Clearly any comments need to be factual; what happened, what was achieved. Unfortunately this means the manager does need to do their homework properly. In our reader’s case, it seems that he hadn’t.

During The Year

To fill out the forms effectively it’s much easier if you keep records during the year of achievements against the objectives and agree them with your team as you go. Then, at the end of the year, the job is virtually done – and much more accurate.

It seems to me that any manager who does not do this and fills in forms with vague opinions and sweeping, unsubstantiated comments should themselves receive poor ratings on their performance review or appraisal documentation.

What Are Your Comments and Experiences?

Do add your own thoughts and comments. I’ll look forward to reading them and responding.

If you need any help on giving writing feedback for performance reviews you will find examples on page 17 of my booklet ‘Praise and the Appraisal’. Use this link to find out more.

http://www.vinehouse.co.uk/performanceshop.htm#PraiseAndTheAppraisal

Make sure any comments you add are accurate and factual, and question any on your own form that aren’t.

nancysig

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