Our current Appraisal system has been in place since approximately 1997. Apart from a few minor changes to the documentation it is virtually the same as when it was first introduced. Initial enthusiasm for the system has waned somewhat and a review of its effectiveness now needs to take place. Has anyone recently undertaken a similar exercise and would be willing to share their thoughts on best practice/ experiences of achieving a system that everyone in the organisation from Senior Management to junior staff buys into?
Paul Timmins
4 Responses
Appraisal Help for you
Hi Paul
We have successfully introduced a new Appraisal Scheme across a company manufacturing, marketing,and installing Office furniture. This was a total root and branch process. Total headcount in the region of 3000, management cadre 300, did the whole programme, design, delivery, communications , training, evaluation and planning.
More than happy to talk issues through.01352 706211
Best regards Malcolm
Article
Paul, if you let me have your e mail I’ll send you an article I wrote on this very topic
[email protected]
RE: Getting the most from your appraisal process
I led a team of internal NHS staff to design a new performance management system for 6,500 staff at all levels.
We established a Core Design Team of Managers and Staff who came together to establish the key principles of the new system.
Overlapping with this, we established Implementational Teams that consulted about the principles and took responsibility for piloting the new framework and for coaching and training others to use it. These teams were also responsible for reporting and evaluating progress.
I made sure that I involved key stakeholders in the process, even when they appeared to be critical of the initiative, because I believed that the new system needed to stand up to robust scrutiny.
It was implemented over a two year period and it was well supported. It was a combined objectives and competence based system. However, it was not used by 100% of staff.
In a national review of peformance management, most of the design principles and practices of this system were endorsed and recommended for use at the national level.
Please contact me if you have more specific questions about how we went about this development.
Appraisal evaluation
We launched an ambitious performance appraisal into non profit humanitarian organisation. We had a history of perforamance appraisals with the usual mid warm compliance. The new one introduced by a new snr manager coming from the corporate world included such meritorcratic concepts such as E_A ratings, grids, Bell curves and associated merit pay etc. etc. it was viewed suspiciously and bitterly resented and rejected. We engaged an independent consultant to evaluate the tool and its use. The results did not make for pretty reading. The major criticism from staff was the lack of consultation in creating the tool. Based on that evaluation we have since revised the evaluation. A further error was for the senior manager of our support services division to take the position that this was an HR initiative. Ours is a consultative organisation with no union, but with a strong Staff Association. A major success factor was the collaboration of HR with the Staff Association and a cross functional team who interpreted the consultant’s evaluation. We have managed to get agreement from all parties about the format and process and we will now rely on them to present the new version to staff before we attempt any organisational roll out. This may seem to be a rather lengthy process, but we could have saved ourselves a lot of heartache delay and major negative impact on morale if we had adopted a consultative approach in the first place.
I’m not sure if this is what you wanted. Feel free to contact me personally if you would like to discuss further.