3 Responses

1. Positives
   Hi Janine

   One of the main things I’ve found is that a lot of people look to the negative first and others refuse to think they could possibly improve. A useful exercise might be to get them to think about the things they do well. You could do this as a ‘real life’ type of exercise, thinking about and listing what they do well at work. Or you could get them to think about themselves from the perspective of 3 people they know, (work or personal life) and what they think those people would say about them (only positives allowed!). If the group know each other well, you could put them in groups of 2 or 3 and get them to think about 3 or 4 positive things about each other.

   Then you could get them to think about what they could do better or would like to develop for the future.

   This will hopefully get them contributing more to their own appraisals and being balanced about it as well.

   Regards

   Sue

2. here are some exercises I wrote in 2006 for this
   1. Send out a brief note to all the staff that defines the purpose of the appraisal and the appraisal process in less than three short sentences. Attached to this is a brief “questionnaire” that each person is asked to fill in and bring with them to the course. It asks them to write their personal answers to these questions
   ~what does my manager get out of this?
   ~what could I get out of this?
   ~what does my manager need to do to make this worthwhile for all?
   ~what must I do to make this worthwhile for me?

   2. At the course get the staff to work in groups to discuss, compare, contrast and share their answers.
   3. Get each group to flipchart these answers and debate.
   4. Capture the contents of the flipcharts…they show what people really think about the process and the benefits, as well as the management actions required and the staff commitments

   I hope this helps
   rus.
   http://www.coach-and-courses.com

3. I know the feeling!
   I recently put together an e-learning programme addressing the appraisal from the point of view of the appraisee. It’s shocking how little material there is on the subject. Considering the song and dance we make about how it’s two-way street and we want the employee to make an equal contribution , the fact that the bulk of the training has focused on the appraiser is perhaps rather telling!

   Anyhoo – that soapbox is for another time.

   The sort of exercises I used were around listening skills, objective setting, questioning skills and body language.

   There are probably loads of things out there addressing all those areas, but if you draw a blank, let me know and I’ll make a few more specific suggestions.

   One thing my client shied away from was material that covered what to do if your appraiser is doing a really bad job of the appraisal. If you can get it past your lot to include that, I recpon it will add enormous value to the course. I see little point in training material that starts from a false premise, and, after all, we’ve all been in the situation where the appraiser hasn’t got a clue. Unless the appraisee knows how to turn that around, there will be no benefit in it for either of them and it will degenerate into a box-ticking exercise.

   Okay, I’ll stop now, before I make it all the way up onto my soapbox!