Performance appraisal interviews
- 1. Performance appraisal interviews In this file, you can ref useful information about performance appraisal interviews such as performance appraisal interviews methods, performance appraisal interviews tips, performance appraisal interviews forms, performance appraisal interviews phrases … If you need more assistant for performance appraisal interviews, please leave your comment at the end of file. Other useful material for you: • performanceappraisal123.com/1125-free-performance-review-phrases • performanceappraisal123.com/free-28-performance-appraisal-forms • performanceappraisal123.com/free-ebook-11-methods-for-performance-appraisal I. Contents of getting performance appraisal interviews ================== In my early career as a lawyer, annual performance appraisal interviews were among the worst experiences I ever made. The way things were done, or not done (so many interviews were postponed and eventually cancelled), was amazingly wrong. When I hear today’s junior associates, I have the impression that things have improved for the happy few, but for the majority, the experience remains as meaningless, shocking, and frustrating as ever. So, as my contribution to alleviating this widespread and useless pain, I offer some practical recommendations. I would have been so relieved back then if my supervisors had followed them! 1. Clarify your intention in advance. What is your project for the person? Do you want to retain the person or do you want him to go? Do you want a major change in a particular area? Do you feel that everything is OK and just check that this corresponds to the other person’s perception? You need to define in advance the main orientation that will guide you during the interview. If you don’t, you might sound unfocused, undecided, unclear, and inconsistent. In other words, very un-professional. 2. Don’t postpone the interview. I remember the frustration in my early days as a baby lawyer, when the partners would postpone again and again the annual appraisal interview, without even telling me in advance (I would arrive in the meeting room as scheduled, and after waiting in vain for 15 minutes, I would ask the partner’s secretary about what was going on, only to hear that the partner had left for a meeting or something. And of course there would be no apologies.) Associates, especially younger ones, need recognition, feedback, and guidance. The annual interview is often the only opportunity for them to get it. This interview is therefore very
- 2. important to them, it matters a lot and they have great expectations about it. Postponing the interview because “important issues” came up on the partner’s table means exactly that: associates are not important issues. There is no better way to pull down motivation and feed cynicism among young associates. 3. Focus on the conversation, not the paperwork. HR people, when they get involved, sometimes tend to bureaucratise the annual performance appraisal to an unnecessary extent. Year after year, evaluation forms get longer and longer. The annual appraisal interview is devoted to filling in or reviewing the forms. That is not the way to do it right. Documents and forms may be useful, and are sometimes indispensable to offer a consistent framework and make sure that the right questions are addressed, but the purpose of the interview is not to do the paperwork. It is not about the forms, it is about the people. 4. Find the right balance between talking and listening. Some evaluators talk too much: they don’t ask questions or they don’t listen. The interview is just a monologue. Other evaluators don’t talk enough: they do not give their feedback, share their opinion, or offer guidance and recommendations. They don’t want to hurt, or have no idea, or don’t care, whatever. The point is, like in any other valuable conversation, there must be a good balance between speaking up your mind and actively listening to the other side of the story. 5. Base your negative feedback on facts. Whenever you need to give negative feedback, refer to objective facts and avoid generalisation and personal accusation. “You were late on the two last meetings” is a fact. “You are always late” is a generalisation. “You are disorganised and unreliable” is both a generalisation and a personal accusation. (I was once called “too intuitive”, but never heard the facts on which this judgement of my identity was grounded). But then again, “Because you were late on the two last meetings, I have the impression that you are disorganised and I feel that I cannot rely on you” is OK: instead of accusing the person of being this or that, you just refer to objective facts (“you were late at two meetings”) and then you describe how it affects you. Instead of accusing the other, you take responsibility for your feelings and your thoughts. 6. Broaden up the discussion. Evaluation is not only about the number of billable hours or other forms of output and performance. It is also about the drivers of performance, that is motivation and skills. 7. Cover past, present, and future. Don’t limit yourself to assessing the good and bad points of the last 12 months. Focus also on the present and the future (career prospects, long-term professional orientation, etc.).
- 3. 8. Come up with an action plan, and follow it up. Appraisal interviews must end up in decisions, and decisions must translate in actions. A practical way to do exactly that is to produce an action plan, and most importantly, to follow up on it. If you don’t have the will or the ability to follow up and implement action plans, don’t make any in the first place. ================== III. Performance appraisal methods 1.Ranking Method The ranking system requires the rater to rank his subordinates on overall performance. This consists in simply putting a man in a rank order. Under this method, the ranking of an employee in a work group is done against that of another employee. The relative position of each employee is tested in terms of his numerical rank. It may also be done by ranking a person on his job performance against another member of the competitive group. Advantages of Ranking Method i. Employees are ranked according to their performance levels. ii. It is easier to rank the best and the worst employee. Limitations of Ranking Method i. The “whole man” is compared with another “whole man” in this method. In practice, it is very difficult to compare individuals possessing various individual traits. ii. This method speaks only of the position where an employee stands in his group. It does not test anything about how much better or how much worse an employee is when compared to another employee. iii. When a large number of employees are working, ranking of individuals become a difficult issue. iv. There is no systematic procedure for ranking individuals in the organization. The ranking system does not eliminate the possibility of snap judgements. 2. Rating Scale
- 4. Rating scales consists of several numerical scales representing job related performance criterions such as dependability, initiative, output, attendance, attitude etc. Each scales ranges from excellent to poor. The total numerical scores are computed and final conclusions are derived. Advantages – Adaptability, easy to use, low cost, every type of job can be evaluated, large number of employees covered, no formal training required. Disadvantages – Rater’s biases 3. Checklist method Under this method, checklist of statements of traits of employee in the form of Yes or No based questions is prepared. Here the rater only does the reporting or checking and HR department does the actual evaluation. Advantages – economy, ease of administration, limited training required, standardization. Disadvantages – Raters biases, use of improper weighs by HR, does not allow rater to give relative ratings 4. Critical Incidents Method The approach is focused on certain critical behaviors of employee that makes all the difference in the performance. Supervisors as and when they occur record such incidents. Advantages – Evaluations are based on actual job behaviors, ratings are supported by descriptions, feedback is easy, reduces recency biases, chances of subordinate improvement are high. Disadvantages – Negative incidents can be prioritized, forgetting incidents, overly close supervision; feedback may be too much and may appear to be punishment.
- 5. 5. Essay Method In this method the rater writes down the employee description in detail within a number of broad categories like, overall impression of performance, promoteability of employee, existing capabilities and qualifications of performing jobs, strengths and weaknesses and training needs of the employee. Advantage – It is extremely useful in filing information gaps about the employees that often occur in a better-structured checklist. Disadvantages – It its highly dependent upon the writing skills of rater and most of them are not good writers. They may get confused success depends on the memory power of raters. 6. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales statements of effective and ineffective behaviors determine the points. They are said to be behaviorally anchored. The rater is supposed to say, which behavior describes the employee performance. Advantages – helps overcome rating errors. Disadvantages – Suffers from distortions inherent in most rating techniques. III. Other topics related to Performance appraisal interviews (pdf download) • Top 28 performance appraisal forms • performance appraisal comments • 11 performance appraisal methods • 25 performance appraisal examples • performance appraisal phrases • performance appraisal process • performance appraisal template
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