Sumiko Tan's article last Sunday brought about some sense of deja vu. She was writing about the new performance appraisal system that had just been implemented in her company. Years ago, I believe the government sectors have already started the total performance appraisal system, where besides being appraised by one's supervisor, we get to appraise our own supervisors and the other Heads of Departments as well. We could even appraise the boss!
At times I wonder how fair all these appraisal systems can be. No doubt everyone is supposed to be impartial, but being humans, we can never be impartial. Even parents, they treat certain children differently from the others. All along in ancient history, ever since people existed, there have never been impartiality, especially towards women. Even now, with modernisation and emancipation, there is still no total impartiality.
Face it, a female will always earn less than a male counterpart of the same qualifications, age, working experiences and job scope. A female has to do twice or more than the male counterpart of the same rank before she can be promoted, whereas men tend to be promoted faster, despite already having higher starting pay. Sad to say, this is still the case in a lot of companies.
Anyway, during a performance appraisal, can a supervisor really be impartial? I believe there will be some supervisees he / she likes better than others, or some he / she has more chemistry with as compared to others. Even though it is unprofessional to be personal, but still, if you get along better with a person, you tend to have nicer and better things to say about this person. Whereas if you cannot get along with someone, it is hard to think of positive things when it comes to this person.
Despite what everyone claims about not being personal, but why are those staff who gets into trouble normally those who has no chemistry with the superiors, and those that get well-treated normally those who can get along? It comes the day when even bosses get appraised by their subordinates, and they, too, start panicking, because they will wonder if the person they keep picking on will tell tales about them.
Such is human nature. But at the end of the day, we all know which boss is good and which is no good. There are some bosses who are very hard on others, who do not mince words, but yet really care for the staff. There are some who are so friendly, who never wants to offend, but in the end goodness knows what he / she does behind your back.
After a while, people can see who are those who can work and who are those who cannot. I believe the truest form of performance appraisal is not how well you get along with your co-workers or your superiors, or how show-off one is, but whether you are able to have a superior willing to fight for you to retain you because he believes and recognises in you and your work. After all the failures, that happened to me recently, and to now, I am immensely grateful as well as proud that I have achieved some progress somewhat.
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