| Appraisal: KRAs bring performance into perspective
19 Mar, 2008, 1545 hrs IST,Rajkumar D, |
BANGALORE: With salaries sky rocketing and employees earning never-before perks, HR departments are having a tough time as a new thinking has begun to unfold across organisations. Employees know what they are worth— both within the organisation and outside. So they are willing to jump the ship at the slightest hint of an increase in compensation. Consider this: as soon as an employee shifts to a new organisation, the sense of increased value disappears. Clearly, "value" is not something that is recognised by employees for long. It is a short, transient emotion, easily overridden by other considerations. Why does this happen? Why do employees not see their value being the same for any reasonable period of time? Is it because they don't measure their value against anything other than what the market has to offer? There is only one thing that differentiates employees from one another. It is the manner in which they deliver work. There are employees who spend hours at work, but not really contribute anything towards the company. During appraisals, this employee expects a fairly large hike in compensation for the hours spent at the workplace and not for the actual work put in. This is where a transparent appraisal system becomes effective. It helps the employee and employer discuss and evaluate the performance in an open and orderly fashion. This is when the employee is able to equate her sense of value to compensation. The very first step is to design a system which should be simple and easy for everyone to understand. It should make use of simple visual aids which help the employee understand how they need to evaluate themselves. One can conduct short workshops or use the company's intranet to communicate the process. E-mails and SMS are some quicker ways of making people aware of the appraisal process. This appraisal process should define how an employee is to grade her work based on KRAs (key result areas) set at the beginning of the quarter or the year. Employees must be able to judge for themselves as to how they have fared against those KRAs. Spending long hours, without meeting your KRAs does not and will not amount to excellent performance. Such an appraisal system brings performance into perspective. It clearly brings out tasks that need to be done to meet company goals. If these tasks are done well, the employee will see how she has helped contribute to the company and can negotiate a higher compensation. But clearly, the compensation will not be equated with the amount of time spent at office or on the field. Developing a KRA-oriented evaluation process is only half the battle. There still lies the issue of implementing the process and keeping employees informed of the process. In case the communication from the HR team is not effective, we could end up with people being unhappy with the increase in compensation they receive. Normally, the only direct contact an employee makes with the appraisal process is during self-evaluation and feedback (from the reporting manager ). Employees are generally kept in the dark as to what goes on in the background. The onus falls on the HR team to inform the employee on how the appraisal process will measure performance. This helps create transparency. The employee to whom the process has been explained is aware of where he/ she is headed. Transparency creates a higher level of acceptance into the appraisal process. Developing an effective process would be a futile exercise unless it is implemented. While I do agree that there would be a few people unhappy with the compensation received, I am sure that the majority would know what the company expects from them in future. This would result in better performances. A system that lays all cards on the table for the employees to see, leaving no doubts in the employees' mind, is the winning system. TRANSPARENT EVALUATION Explain company goals and objectives to employees Set key result areas (KRAs) early enough in the year Ensure that KRAs are understood by the employees in relation to company goals See that measurable yardsticks are created & explained at the time of implementing the KRAs Both the employee and employer should feel that the KRAs are fair, clear and measurable Both employee and employer must agree on the terms of the metrics used to measure KRAs Ensure that KRAs are not changed too frequently Rajkumar D (Senior manager, HR, Microland) | |
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