Every manager is required to do Performance Appraisals. Generally, the season for this is once a year. The employees keenly look forward to this, because they are expecting a ‘good grade’ after a year of hard work and more importantly, their compensation increase would be based on this. The managers, usually, do not look forward to this season. During this time, all the ‘work’ stops and only this ‘HR activity’ happens. The 3rd party in this season is the HR team. This is their time, and they push the whole system to get the ‘job’ done. The ‘policy’ already exists, and all clarifications and questions generally are answered with the ‘policy statements’. All departments are required to meet the ‘normal’ distribution of the ratings.

So why do managers generally detest this? There is this huge emotional dialogue and debate with the team members. They get upset. Managers get emotionally overdrawn. Each review lasts for a couple of hours, without seeming to reach a closure (you thought you closed it and pop…there is an email in your inbox from the employee raising some or same points again!). A few even ask for group change and occasionally some even leave citing bad review! Who likes this anyway?

The more important question is – How to do this right? Let’s start with the expected outcome. The employee must feel good after the review and look forward to doing more in future with the manager and the company. The manager is very hopeful for employee’s growth and performance.

A manager has to play the judge and deliver a verdict about the performance of the employee. As a Judge, you carefully look at all the data, and make a judgment taking into account the law (in this case the policy). The big difference here is that the Judge is himself or herself involved – they provide the relevant data and then judge it too, and the employee is judging the Judge too (is my manager being fair to me?). Hence there is an inherent conflict of interest here. If the employee’s expectations are not met, then he/she gets frustrated.

In order to accomplish the goal, the manager, perhaps needs to become the coach of the employee. A coach is also making judgments. But there is a difference. A successful coach earns the trust of his team. The team knows that the coach is working towards their success. This is all the job of the coach is. Hence they listen to the coach. The coach gets to know the ‘game’ and the ‘capability’ of each of the members, and then helps each of them to make a plan to make this better. Trust means that the team does not doubt the agenda of the coach. The agenda is obvious – the team wins and this can happen only when each of the members gets better, and this is what the coach is working on. The coach is helping on a regular basis. He/she is giving pointed feedback, and then asking how the team member plans to improve. The coach gives his/her own suggestions too. A good coach is very demanding, much more than managers. But his/her team listens because they have unwavering trust in the coach – that he/she has their success in mind, and that he/she is competent.

A manager despite competence finds it hard to become as effective as a coach. The team members may not be sure whose success the manager is interested in – theirs or his/her own. Most of the time the manager spends time reviewing the task and not connect to the employee. Employee thinks that manager is focussed on the project success (i.e., his own success) and does not care about employee’s interests. It is hard to have a trusting relationship in this situation. Sometimes, there is also lack of clarity on the overall goal. And hence the feedback looks like a judgment, and team members could feel violated because they consider the manager as an outsider rather than aas one of them. To top it all, most managers do not give feedback for improvement until the ‘season’, that is once a year, through the review. The employee gets a surprise, and we all know that unpleasant surprises of this type do not build trust.

Perhaps we as managers must see ourselves as coaches who are able to demand high performance from their team because the team trusts them completely. The right way to measure the success of a review is that a manager mails the review document to his team members in advance and asks for a meeting. Many employees say they are willing to sign it off without the meeting. The meetings last for 30 to 45 minutes and are focussed on discussing the future, and not arguing about the past. And, the team wants to retain the same coach!

Irrespective of the strengths or limitations of the Performance Appraisal Policy of their company, good managers earn the trust of their team and are able to drive their performance, and make them successful. They are able to Make A Difference to their team. Everyone wants to work with these managers. And the HR team can perhaps focus on how to enable managers to be coaches.

Question 1: In your experience, what determines the success of a Performance Appraisal System?

Question 2: What is the main reason for failure?

Your thoughts and questions will be a learning opportunity for everyone. Won’t you like to (be) M.A.D.?

Performance Management, Talent Management, Uncategorized Aadesh Goyal

Last month, I met an old friend. He had done himself well, and is now the HR Head – or Chief People Officer as he would insist -in a blue-chip company.

“How have you been?” I asked him.

“Oh, I am doing well,” he replied.

“…and how has the current recession affected you?” This was a curiosity for me: what would the HR professionals be doing with people when there is not enough market demand to keep the employees productively employed.

“Not much, really!! We have managed it well,” he said. “In fact, we just concluded an Employee Alignment and Optimization initiative last week.”

‘Employee Alignment and Optimization ” seemed such a sexy term. It conjoured up images of a happy bunch of people being helped by my friend and his HR team to bring their interest and capabilities in-synch with their work and performance.

“That’s really nice! You mean, you assessed and re-allocated them so that they get to do what they are really capable of doing, and enjoy doing?”

He looked aghast and uncomfortable. “No! no!,” he said. “This was actually an initiative to disengage about 200 of them from the organization.”

“You mean, you fired them?!!” I was startled, not being sure how can one “optimize” and “align” people by firing them.

“No, actually, we didn’t have to fire them, at all,” he beamed, happily. “In fact, as we had planned, it was a voluntary separation. It was really a very smooth process.”

I was thoroughly impressed. “That’s really remarkable!,” I said with awe. “It says so much about the level of commitment you must have fostered among the people, that they could make such a sacrifice for the larger good of the organization. Imagine!… you send out a mail saying that we need 200 volunteers to leave the organization – and people actually volunteer.”

My friend looked at me as if I had lost my beans. “Of course, Not! It was not like that at all!!” he almost choked. “This was a very systematic and thorough exercise; we planned it with precision, and with full confidentiality; and we trained our HR and line executives to communicate the choice to the 200 of our employees who had be separated.”

I was befuddled, “….and what was the choice?”

“Oh!,” he said with the pride of a general who has cleverly ambushed the enemy. “We told them that they can volunteer to resign; they will have to sign a document to that effect. It was our legal department which suggested this. In return, we will give them 2 months of “sabbatical leave” – “

“Sabbatical leave! You mean, the company will finance 2 months for their re-education?” I was amazed at this generous gesture, though by now, I had a nagging doubt that there must be a catch somewhere.

“No, no!, we can’t do that. Think of the costs!” he corrected me. “You know, what with this sensitivity of media about the pink-slips, we had to really think about what to call this interim period. What we actually offered them was 2 months of further employment at half salary, and they don’t have to come to office – actually, they can’t enter office! We also promised to help their outplacement, and they get a decent separation package after 3 months. Depending upon their length of service, they would get 2-months to 10-months of their pay as the severance pay.”

“…and what if they didn’t accept this offer?”, I was curious – or as Alice would have said, it was getting curiouser and curiouser.

He laughed, waving his hands in the air. “Actually, there was not much of a choice for them.” he said with some satisfaction. “We had their performance ratings, and other inputs from the line managers, which we could use to retrench them. We told them that, upfront…. our Legal Dept had already put together a strong case for termination for each of them, really!.”

A stray thought suddenly occurred to me.

“But tell me,” I asked. ”why did you want to fire – er, sorry, disengage - them in the first place!?”

He looked at me incredulously, as if I was from some other planet. “Don’t you read the newspapers?” he asked. “I don’t know if this is a cyclical recession or a meltdown, but the point is that we need to cut down costs – and maintain our margins.”

“Costs!!.. But aren’t employees the “resources” – I mean, Human Resources? I know organizations which even call them “the most precious assets” or “human capital”? How did they suddenly become “cost” to the company?”

“Ugh! You don’t seem to understand…,” he lapsed into silence for some time. “After all, “resources”, “assets” etc., are just words. The key issue is: whether, as HR professionals, we are contributing to business or not.”

“But what happens if the business picks up in a year or so, and you need more people?”

“If that happens, we will have to hire new ones”, he said in a matter-of-fact manner. “The point is that have to maintain our profit margins of 35%…”

Needless to say, we left each other, puzzled – and the rest of the conversation, somewhat, went on the same tenor…

And I recalled Jerry Harvey’s classical article: “Eichmann in the Organisation”…

“… it was not the Nazis only who were to be blamed for what happened to Jews – but also the Jewish Council in Germany. To quote:

“…the collusive role played by the Jewish councils – the most powerful, respected, and trusted members of the Jewish community – in the liquidation of their own people, including, in the end, themselves…. they compiled lists for the Nazis of persons to be deported… served as police during actual seizure of people and property… “ etc.

In the contemporary scenario, Adolf Eichmann was the quintessential Human Resources professional, and would have approved of the new HR Mantra:

Align!… Optimize!!… Fire!!!

Building HR Strategy, Personal Credibility, Service Orientation, Strategic Thinking & Alignment, Talent Management Dr Madhukar Shukla

It was the month of June 1999, when I first met Vijayan[1]. I was interviewing him for a position of project lead in my company. Vijayan had all those qualities required for being considered for this position. A graduate degree in electronics and communication engineering from one of the premier engineering colleges in the country, followed by a masters from one of the sought after US universities and then about five years of relevant working experience in Silicon Valley with well known semiconductor companies. The technical interview panel already recommended his selection indicating his having very high degree of competence required for the job. In the HR round, I was very impressed with his clarity of thought, when he answered my questions, especially those related to his career.  Then he made an unusual request. He wanted to be employed part time. I was not prepared for this because I always thought a project leader’s job in an IT company has to be full time. But he was very firm in his decision. He said half the day he would like to work for an NGO committed to uplift the life-standards of village artisans. Initially I did not agree but later on after talking to my other colleagues I reluctantly agreed to give a try. Vijayan joined us and over a period of time, he emerged as one of the most successful project leads in the company. However, he continued to work for half the day. In due course, I gradually became aware about him as a person, his views about many things in life and what he wants to achieve in his career. I realised that the primary objective in his career was not to become a successful IT manager, but to help others for a cause and make the world a better place to live.

It’s a mere coincidence that I met Sarita1 during the same time. She had a MBA in HR from one of the premier institutes of the country. She was then looking for an organisation which could give her opportunity to work for part - time in the HR team. I interviewed her and found her very competent in her area of expertise. I offered her a part time job as a consultant in the HR team. She did her job very well and then I offered her to be a permanent member of the team with regular managerial responsibilities. She was very clear in her approach, she said she would accept the manger’s role but still would like to continue part time. I realised that she valued her family and personal life equally to that of her organisational career and professional achievements and was not ready to give up one at the cost of the others.  I was much wiser by then and I offered her a part time managerial job for a team of full time HR professionals. She not only excelled in her job but also was well accepted by her team members.

During the same time only I met Raviram1 in one of the conferences where both of us were co-speakers. We became good friends over a period of time and started meeting each other regularly to exchange our thoughts on subjects of mutual interests over weekends. Raviram was working for a multinational IT company as the software engineering head and was doing exceedingly well. He was being considered for heading the company for a major product initiative in the South East Asia region. Suddenly, in one of these meetings, he confessed about his intention of leaving his job.  He sought my advice. However, the passionate way he explained his future plans to start his new organisation, I somehow knew he had already made up his mind. As predicted, going against advices from almost all his close friends and relatives he decided to quit and started his own company.

These three real life incidents convinced me that many of the traditional theoretical concepts for explaining career phenomena seem less valid today in India than they did earlier. There were three significant changes that I was witnessing through these experiences. The first was the de-coupling of the concept of career to any one organisation (so entrenched in my mind set) and even from its exclusive association with paid employment. Second the departure from the usually accepted notion of career as regular progressions through ladder like job sequences. Third was the newer meaning of career that went beyond organisations and encompassed family, life-interests and personal accomplishment.

Interestingly enough, in all the three real - life examples that I narrated above provided me an interesting insight about the career and career success in today’s world. Whereas in earlier days in India, professionals were contended with the organisational view of career and the career success today’s professionals were looking for self-defined view of career and the career success. Therefore, I felt it was important for me to understand the crucial building blocks that defined career and career success for these professionals. Reflecting on these experiences, I realised that if we, the HR professionals continue to take a purely transactional view of individual-organisational relationship, see as any individual as largely replaceable in terms of skill set, and view all non-work interest as strictly the individual’s business unless they infringe on his/her daily work schedule, we will be focusing as usual with the organisation - driven objective and external perspective of career and ignoring the individual - driven, subjective and internal perspective of career.  Instead I thought could we address internal career needs of these professionals in organisational context.

In the backdrop of such realities, it calls for re- examining the changing meaning of career itself; the silent evolution that had already taken place in west and has already began in India, especially among the new generation whom I refer as “New Careerists”.

Career researcher Shepherd described this as a new career contact, which is not a pact with the organisation but more of an agreement with one’s self and one’s work. According to him, “these are the things that you can now or potentially could do with excellence, which are fulfilling in the doing of them, so fulfilling that if you also get paid to do them, it feels not like compensation, but like a gift”.

In this changing scenario, organisations in India need to realise that the time has come here too, where the work force are turning themselves into more pluralistic, where individual need fulfillment is as important as the external ones imposed by demands, possibilities, and limitations of the organisations. Success for these “New Careerists” will therefore depend to what extent organisations adopt creative and unorthodox HR practices that can effectively address internal career needs of these young and mobile professionals and create an emotional bonding between individuals and the organisation. This pluralistic framework of career recognises that there are markedly different ways of defining career success for an individual in the context of organisation, consequently markedly different approaches to career management to manage these “New Careerists”.

Are we ready to experiment?

[1] Real names have not been used to keep the anonymity

Business Knowledge, Change Orientation, Talent Management, Training & Development Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay