The first quarter of the year always begins with a bang! Literally a bang.. cause that's the time appraisals are done and promotions and salary revisions are contemplated. Its also a time when you have extremely satisfied or extremely frustrated employees and over-worked managers.
This year is particularly challenging, cause I have a dozen extremely good performers whom I need to evaluate and appraise. So, I have the responsibility of aiding their growth up the corporate ladder, which can be a big challenge considering the fact that we have a very flat organization structure, where you cannot promote a "Manager" to be a "Senior Manager" and make him happy, add to that the falling dollar value and the generally stagnant software industry, the challange magnifies!
Although I have made a very fair assessment, I am sure I will be one of those managers who are blamed for not being fair, not respecting age or experience ... etc., Most of this can be avoided if we are able to appraise ourselves, and see our own plus'es and minuses.
The first rule is never compare yourself with another employee. Understand that each one has their own skills and each of us is different! A good illustration of this fact can be obtained from this snippet:
A mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the motor of a Harley motorcycle when he spotted a well-known heart surgeon in his shop. The surgeon was there, waiting for the service manager to come and take a look at his bike. The mechanic shouted across the garage, "Hey, Doc, can I ask you a question?" The surgeon a bit surprised, walked over to the mechanic working on the motorcycle. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "So Doc, look at this engine. I open its heart, take valves out, fix 'em, put 'em back in, and when I finish, it works just like new. So how come I get such a small salary and you get the really big bucks, when you and I are doing basically the same work?" The surgeon paused, smiled and leaned over, and whispered to the mechanic... "Try doing it with the engine running."
Rule number two, never argue with your Manager, always accept feedback and work towards bettering yourself. The end of the year is not the right time to argue, you had the full year to do it!
Third rule, always keep expectations low, the higher you jump, the harder you fall!
Final rule is for the appraisers, appraise the work and not the person. Be fair and support your rating with facts.
Last but not the least... when your work speaks for itself.. . just move out of the way!!
2 comments:
wow ! thought provoking post!
I liked the points about keeping expectations low, and not comparing one with the other.
If I could add:
It'll be good for both appraiser and appraisee to keep a regular diary -- through the year -- that chronicles the work. That makes the assessment more fair.
All said and done sometimes I feel the entire process is taken a bit too far, it sometimes looks forced. I don't think we need to go through such an elaborate, complicated systems to judge people who work with us everyday. These exercises must be much simpler.
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