Performance Appraisal: A Scorecard Model for Staff Evaluation

by Eric Alagan

An ideal Performance Appraisal Model is one that is collaborative, participative and on-going. Nice words, but what do these mean in practice? It is tied closely to a reward and recovery system that employees deem fair, simple to understand and consistent. The most important individuals in any performance appraisal are the employees and the appraisers - not HRM and certainly not corporate management. It might be opportune to review what makes a win-win-win Performance Appraisal Model and how many methodologies currently in use, consider the 1. Depth of employee participation - to ensure perceptions of equity 2. Depth of line manager participation - to ensure buy-in 3. Degree of collaboration between HRM, line manager and employees 4. Maintain the authority and responsibility levels of line managers 5. Ensure consistency, transparency and measurability 6. Combines subjective and objective elements - skills versus attitudes 7. Alignment with reward - monetary and promotion prospects 8. Trigger for further training and recovery - staff development 9. Spots talent - to groom future leaders 10. Flexible - incorporates team results and individual contributions Are all of the above possible? Yes! However, to succeed, change is required and that change must come from top management. The sad and brutal truth is, most top managements spew clichés about team building, how people are their greatest assets and so forth - and stop there, with clichés. It is not a question of how consultative but rather how authoritative top management is. This is not surprising when we learn that organizational structures, no matter what fanciful names management gurus give them, are permutations of and had their origins in military structures. In any organization, teamwork determines results. However, most current models review performance at an individual level. How do we resolve this dichotomy? Moreover, human resource specialists develop Performance Appraisal Models for line functions, such as marketing/sales and production. They seldom, if ever, have evaluation models for staff functions such as finance and human resource. Modern management views staff functions such as human resource, as crucial to business success - as crucial as sales results and production efficiencies. How does one carry out performance appraisal of Human Resource? Our Scorecard Model shows how.

100 pages, Paperback

First published July 17, 2014