Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Improving the objectivity of the appraisal process...

continuing from where I left earlier....

It is more or less a cliché, at least in the HR circles, that people don’t leave organizations; they leave their managers. Then it fails me as to why (the hell) do organizations (we) leave it only to the manager to appraise employees’ performance? Why do we leave it to the relationship between managers and employees to decide where the latter will be? Where is the objectivity? How can third parties (HR, bosses’ boss etc) do anything to increase the objectivity? Why can’t HR processes be smart enough to account for 'those' managers and accept that there is a better way to do these things? Why can’t we be radical? Why can’t we be unconventional? Why do we all have to do the same things that other organizations do and why do we believe that the same processes fit into all organizations irrespective of their cultures? (BTW, I should admit that reading Dilbert and recognizing Dilbert’s popularity across the globe leaves me with a growing feeling that cultures don’t really differ from company to company and country to country! ;)) Come back, Nimmy. So, why can’t we do away with appraisals by managers? Why can’t we have a customer and peer survey instead? Or why can’t we have a combination of the two? Why can’t we have appropriate numerical and qualitative feedback capturing mechanisms throughout the year to assess the performance of the employee? Methinks, we have to work on this and come up with a full-fledged process and propose it to people worth their appraisals…oops…worth their salt.

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