It is my company’s staff appraisal period. Luckily I am not involved as I just joined the firm. Come to think of it, I have not had any performance appraisal for the past year. Maybe it is due to the fact that I have been changing jobs.
The last time I had an appraisal was mid last year before I quitted my teaching job. I have never approved of the way the appraisal system was being handled. I am not sure about how the private sectors do their staff appraisals, but in the government sectors, staff are being appraised on how “visible” they are.
For instance, A was able to do her work very well, churning out good results and reports, efficient and dedicated, contributed to the committee, have been helping out in other areas all along as well. However, A was someone who did things without complaint, so she did not go around declaring what she had done. A wrote in her appraisal form the things she had done for her own job scope and committee, but neglected to mention the help she rendered for the other committees as she deemed it unnecessary since she did not belong to the other committees.
On the other hand, B was just so-so when it came to her own work and her progress and results left much to be desired. But she liked to declare to everyone what she did, often offloading on others, and taking the credit for herself. She made sure everyone heard her offering help to the colleagues in the other committees as well, but when they did ask her for help, she gave some excuse not to do it. She also tried to suck up to the higher-ups to create a favourable impression. During the appraisal, she noted down everything she did, sometimes exaggerating and making it seemed like she was the ultimate one and no one could do anything without her.
So who would get the better grade? Is it A, who had been doing her job and more, but helped without expecting any return, or B, who was more of a show-off and expected everyone to bow down to her? By right, A should be the one with the better appraisal; unfortunately, it was B who got the better appraisal for “showing off”.
Really sad, is it not? I always thought that the objective of a performance appraisal is to encourage staff to improve on their shortcomings and do better on the things they have done, not to create a competitive and back-stabbing culture. That, coupled with the fact that in the government service, there must be at least certain percentage set aside for ‘D’ graders. For any civil servant, getting a ‘D’ grade is actually ok, except that means no performance bonus or increment for the next three years until the staff gets consecutive ‘C’ grades for two years after that.
Because of this ruling that a certain percentage must be set aside for ‘D’ graders, some employees are getting more and more unscrupulous in achieving what they want. Healthy competition is fine, but to have people stepping on your toes and back-biting you all the time when all you did was to try to help out, it really makes you want to scream out loud.
The worst is an ‘E’ grade. Once someone gets this grade, it means immediate termination, or to some sectors, observation of a period of time and see if the grade can be improved to at least a ‘D’, otherwise termination of service.
But one thing I find unfair is that the employee has to do more work than the previous year before he / she can be appraised at the same grade. So if someone gets ‘C’ this year, he / she must do twice as much work for the next year before he / she can remain as a ‘C’, otherwise it will be a straight ‘D’.
This works if the employee is promoted or given more work to do. But what if the employee stays in the same post and is doing more or less the same type of routine work? How is he / she able to show that he / she is doing more work? Plus if the supervisor is reluctant to give him / her more work, then the poor staff will have nothing to show. So even if he / she is able to do her work very well, but because it is the same workload as the previous year and not more, he / she will get marked down by a grade. Will that not be too unfair to the staff?
I feel that performance appraisal should fundamentally be an encouragement and a motivation to the staff to do better work and improve on areas he / she is weak in. It should not be the sole basis of determining the good staff from the bad staff (as some staff who did not get a good grade may not necessarily be bad, and some staff who got a good grade may not necessarily be that good either), or encouraging back-stabbing among the employees, or determine how much performance bonus or increment to give.
Grading should be given fairly to the staff, not just on what the staff shows for it, because there may be lots more things he / she did very well in but somehow never did declare. This system will be unfair to those who do not believe in “showing off” and just want to help out as much as they can without expecting recognition. This type of employee should deserve a better grade for the good attitude shown.
The last time I had an appraisal was mid last year before I quitted my teaching job. I have never approved of the way the appraisal system was being handled. I am not sure about how the private sectors do their staff appraisals, but in the government sectors, staff are being appraised on how “visible” they are.
For instance, A was able to do her work very well, churning out good results and reports, efficient and dedicated, contributed to the committee, have been helping out in other areas all along as well. However, A was someone who did things without complaint, so she did not go around declaring what she had done. A wrote in her appraisal form the things she had done for her own job scope and committee, but neglected to mention the help she rendered for the other committees as she deemed it unnecessary since she did not belong to the other committees.
On the other hand, B was just so-so when it came to her own work and her progress and results left much to be desired. But she liked to declare to everyone what she did, often offloading on others, and taking the credit for herself. She made sure everyone heard her offering help to the colleagues in the other committees as well, but when they did ask her for help, she gave some excuse not to do it. She also tried to suck up to the higher-ups to create a favourable impression. During the appraisal, she noted down everything she did, sometimes exaggerating and making it seemed like she was the ultimate one and no one could do anything without her.
So who would get the better grade? Is it A, who had been doing her job and more, but helped without expecting any return, or B, who was more of a show-off and expected everyone to bow down to her? By right, A should be the one with the better appraisal; unfortunately, it was B who got the better appraisal for “showing off”.
Really sad, is it not? I always thought that the objective of a performance appraisal is to encourage staff to improve on their shortcomings and do better on the things they have done, not to create a competitive and back-stabbing culture. That, coupled with the fact that in the government service, there must be at least certain percentage set aside for ‘D’ graders. For any civil servant, getting a ‘D’ grade is actually ok, except that means no performance bonus or increment for the next three years until the staff gets consecutive ‘C’ grades for two years after that.
Because of this ruling that a certain percentage must be set aside for ‘D’ graders, some employees are getting more and more unscrupulous in achieving what they want. Healthy competition is fine, but to have people stepping on your toes and back-biting you all the time when all you did was to try to help out, it really makes you want to scream out loud.
The worst is an ‘E’ grade. Once someone gets this grade, it means immediate termination, or to some sectors, observation of a period of time and see if the grade can be improved to at least a ‘D’, otherwise termination of service.
But one thing I find unfair is that the employee has to do more work than the previous year before he / she can be appraised at the same grade. So if someone gets ‘C’ this year, he / she must do twice as much work for the next year before he / she can remain as a ‘C’, otherwise it will be a straight ‘D’.
This works if the employee is promoted or given more work to do. But what if the employee stays in the same post and is doing more or less the same type of routine work? How is he / she able to show that he / she is doing more work? Plus if the supervisor is reluctant to give him / her more work, then the poor staff will have nothing to show. So even if he / she is able to do her work very well, but because it is the same workload as the previous year and not more, he / she will get marked down by a grade. Will that not be too unfair to the staff?
I feel that performance appraisal should fundamentally be an encouragement and a motivation to the staff to do better work and improve on areas he / she is weak in. It should not be the sole basis of determining the good staff from the bad staff (as some staff who did not get a good grade may not necessarily be bad, and some staff who got a good grade may not necessarily be that good either), or encouraging back-stabbing among the employees, or determine how much performance bonus or increment to give.
Grading should be given fairly to the staff, not just on what the staff shows for it, because there may be lots more things he / she did very well in but somehow never did declare. This system will be unfair to those who do not believe in “showing off” and just want to help out as much as they can without expecting recognition. This type of employee should deserve a better grade for the good attitude shown.
6 comments:
To all fairness, your boss would have multiple employees under his/her wing thus it is not possible for him/her to follow you and record down every single stuff you did. Your boss also has his/her stuff to do as well!!
So it IS your responsibility to highlight your achievement. One should bear responsibility and ownership of one's career and performance and should not just point to the boss for not being sensitive or watchful.
If your company do not have a weekly 1 on 1 review, between yourself and your boss, perhaps it is a good idea to take proactive action and propose one. This would keep the discussion flowing and provide visibility for the boss to know. It need not to be formal, it could be an informal setting i.e lunch or etc.
This is my 2 cents.. having had experience in supervising other, i begin to see the other side... I hope this helps.
Good luck
Oh, good idea! I will bring it up to my boss and see what he says. Thanks!
I guess it all boils down to the relationship between you and your boss. Eventhough you donot want to 'suckup' your boss, you also do not want to leave your boss out of loop. What gus said is correct, your boss has his/her own appraisal to worry.
If your boss is fair enough, whatever you have highlighted is already in your boss' mind, and you don't have to worry the backbiting of another colleague.
You will start to worry when your boss is a dictatorian, that whatever you wrote in your appraisal won't change your boss mind, as he/she already has a performance grade in their mind.
You know, I always think that appraisal is a very subjective evaluation. I mean, you are only graded by your boss alone. So if your boss don't like you, say good-bye to your appraisal. But hey, that's working life for us.. so might as well find some way to work around =)
Yes, that is why sometimes it depends on luck whether you can get a good boss. But if the boss dislike you, then just have to try to get onto his / her good side.
In all honesty, you should not have spilled the beans so blatantly in your blog, as what you've written is privy information.
Objectively speaking, the work review and performance grading process is not determined by just your immediate superior. There are other checks and balances. The process is a two way one: the subordinate is allowed raise objections to being awarded a grade that is deemed unfair. You should also mention these facts.
I guess so. However, not many subordinates have been called to raise objections for an unfair grade. It all depends on the company I suppose.
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