Management Information

By Sanjeev Himachali

Performance Appraisal for HR Professionals

Introduction and Purpose

Today, on 12th Nov. 2006 as I am sitting in my study-room, a thought just passed through my mind. The thought was that what will happen:

1. If the HR Team is evaluated by the employees of the company (Read: Appraised by those who are directly getting affected by their work?)?

2. If the employees are asked to decide the "percentage increment" and "promotions" for HR Staff?

3. If at the time of appraisal, employees are asked to decide as which HR person is professional and competent enough stay with the company and who need to be shown the exit-door? Or should be sent for training?

By doing so,

1. Will there be any change in the quality of work of HR Person?

2. Will there be any change is the attitude and behaviour of HR Person?

3. Will they be able to concentrate on actual work rather than bullying around?

In my opinion, I think it will help in changing not only the quality of work, attitude and behaviour but also the way in which most of the HR people work. Through out my career I have advocated that my appraisal has to be done by the employees …those who are directly affected by my performance (or non-performance) rather then going for Self-Appraisal or a Appraisal done by my boss (my superior).

Need for such system

1. Marketing department is appraised by revenue generated by them (Number of Unit Sold)

2. Production department is evaluated by number of units produced and the quality of each unit (Number of units returned)

3. Efficiency of a Customer Service Department can by known by the number of customers retained by them and number of customers lost.

4. IT professionals are judged by the number of projects handled by them, time they have taken to complete each module and of course the quality (which, is judged by clients)

5. The efficiency of a lawyer is known by the number of cases won by him.

6. The market value of a Movie Actor can be evaluated by number of hits or flops of his movies and revenue generated by each of his movie.

7. Players of any game are judged by number of matches won by them. (In India, success rate in the fiekd also decides the endorsement assignments for these players)

8. The efficiency of a teacher can be known by the number of students passed or failed in his or her subject.

9. Even politicians (whether they like or not) at least once in five years (in India) they are appraised by public and need to get elected by public votes.

So, how HR Department, which is a “Service Center” for “internal customer” (read as employees) can run away with just Self-Appraisal or one-to-one appraisal done by their bosses (or superiors)?

Readers may think that such practice of “appraisal by employees” is impossible or is difficult to administer. For some it might look funny. But, it is possible and not “so difficult” to handle.

Proposed Process and Step-by-step Path

To start with we can divide companies into following categories

1) Small Companies (with less than 500 employees)

2) Mid-Size Companies (more than 500 employees but less than 2000 employees)

3) Large size Companies (more than 2000 employees but less than 10,000 employees)

4) Mega-large Companies (more than 10,000 employees)

It is understood that all mid-size, large-size and mega-large companies are also multi-national, multi-location and multi-central organizations and each center or location they don’t have more than 500-700 employees. Ideally speaking each center is managed by one HR-Manager (Call by any name, HR-Head or General Manager or just Manager) along with a team of 5-7 HR personnel taking care of various functions of HR (HR-Operations, Employee Relations, Recruitment, Training and Development etc etc).

Step-1: Prepare an Appraisal form (or format or questionnaire) based on the role of the HR person handling particular function…listing the grades, evaluation criteria etc. It should clearly specify that people with so and so rating will get this much of increment and people above X rating will be considered for promotion.

Step-2: Take a random sample based on the size of the employee strength at that particular center. Ideally speaking there should be one representative for a group of 10 employees.

Step-3: Collect the filled appraisal forms. Tabulate the data and analyze the same by using simple statistical tools.

So, here you are, with the end result and this will decide as who will stay in the company and who will move out. Who need training? Who will get increment and promotions?

Involving more people in Appraisal Process

Not only employees but your team-members should also appraise you, because your performance (or non-performance) also affects the productivity of these functions. For example; the work done by HR-Operations team directly affects the work of Employee Relations Team; in a similar manner the data supplied by recruitment team affects the speed and efficiency of HR-Operations Team.

We can give different weightage for different “evaluation center” and it should we such that it should not dilute the actual purpose.

I propose that the weightage should be as follows:

1) Employees or Clients – 45%

2) Team Member or internal Customers – 25%

3) Self-Appraisal – 10%

4) Appraisal by boss – 20%

Explanation: If total marks are 10, employees can give you marks out-of 4.5; your team members can assign of marks out-of 2.5 and your boss…out of 2.

Evaluation Criteria (Just an Example)

Like our schools and colleges lets keep 35% as passing marks. So, anybody who is getting less than 3.5 on a scale of 1-10 need to be shown the “Exit Door”. Person whose score is between 3.6-5.5, need a lot of improvement in his work and hence need to given “Functional Training” and cannot be considered for Increment or promotion. Anybody who scores between 5.6 – 8.0 can be given increment from 1% - 50% of their salary. Only those whose score is more than 8 should be considered for promotions.

Conclusion

Such system can bring transparency in the system.

1. It will remove the “favoritism” or “buttering” practice from the system.

2. It will increase the “team-spirit” and “team cohesiveness”.

3. It will increase the “need to learn” and update themselves.

4. It will also increase the quality of work.

5. And last but not least, it will take out (change the psychology of) some HR people from the position, where they consider themselves as GOD and think that they can “make or break” the career (or in large sense, the life) of anybody.

I know that many HR personnel don’t like to have such system. That is the reason why processes like “Balance Score Card” or “360-Degree Appraisal System” has not been implemented by most of the HR-Departments and are just used for study purpose. I understand that majority of HR-Personnel’s are not even aware of various HR-Metrics, which are applicable on HR department.

These are my views and it will be nice to have your comments and feedback on the same. What do you think?

Awaiting your comments and feedback

Regards

Sanjeev Himachali

E-mail: ss_himachali@yahoo.com; sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com

Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com