The annual performance appraisal farce PDF Print E-mail
Thursday, 29 October 2009 15:38 Written by Barry Marcus
A very large parastatal organisation must have spent at least R500 million developing so-called BI (business intelligence) systems to measure KPIs or key performance indicators.
A number of projects were carried out at divisional level. It was decided that these be replaced by a corporate-wide system. 
The way this task was approached is:
  • measure anything that can be measured - these will serve as KPIs
  • leave a "back door" open to allow management to "correct" the KPI measures that the system got wrong
Western industry is always pre-occupied with performance management and almost every company that I know of has annual performance appraisals. All sorts of systems are in place. Automated measures, subjective measures, 360 degree appraisals - the list goes on. The idea is that you get what you pay for. A high score means a good salary increase. A low rating means you are doomed. Probably forever.
Japanese companies do not have these annual appraisals. Their products are better quality. Ever wonder why?
As a manager, I organised a chat with one of my programmers. He was failing badly. After the chat, his performance improved markedly. But the senior manager would not allow a good rating.
Deming has much to say about performance appraisals. They are one of the deadly diseases of western industry. He points out that they produce the opposite of the desired effects. They create an environment of manipulation, of fear, of mistrust. 90% of performance is the result of external or team factors anyway! Much performance measurement may be due to chance variation.
While clinging to these outmoded and counter-productive management methods almost universally, western industry attempts to embrace the notions of TQM (Total Quality Management) and Continuous Improvement.

Do they not realise that it is either TQM OR Performance Appraisals? The two can never be combined and expected to work.




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written by AbortRetryFail, October 29, 2009
We have those too, an enforced appraise your performance. Score yourself high and you get cut down, score yourself low and supposedly you will get training to get you up to par. Which never happens, and of course, if you are "in" with your boss a total loser can get a high score and a "bonus". If your boss has it in for you no matter how accurate you appraise yourself, you'll get downgraded.
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written by DBS, October 29, 2009
I have had fair and in the last job bad to no appraisal from a boss. For me it is a continual a*sessment that needs to be done. The goals or KPI on January 1 are not the same come March 1 and certainly not what the company is doing by December 31. If you have an organisation that documents your KPI then make sure that you look at the KPI and ask yourself how I am doing and then go to your boss and ask him how you are doing. Changing KPI or getting "corrective input" early stops the you haven't sone what was agreed conversation at the end of the year. Its probably too late now but next year try it yourself monthly and if need be get the boss to change the KPI.
the other reasin for checking it more frequently is that you may have achieved some of the goals earlier than expected. You find it difficult to remember in December what you achieved in June let alone in March so look at it regularly and achievement done get your boss to acknowledge it there and then. If it leads to another target great because achieve that and when it gets to the performance review you have more ammunition to get a better rating. maybe I should just write a post on how to do this and not be bullied by the boss who is frequently bullied by his boss

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