by Dick Grote
http://www.groteconsulting.com/
© 2007
Conventional wisdom says that there’s
no such thing as a perfect employee performance appraisal form. And with so many
sorry examples of appraisal forms around, conventional wisdom might almost seem
correct.
It’s not. There is an ideal model for the
employee performance appraisal form. And getting the form right is essential to
effective employee performance management, since the appraisal form is the lightning
rod that not only attracts everyone’s attention, but also focuses organizational
energy on the issues of highest priority. An ideal form has five key components
that cover:
- organizational competencies,
- job competencies,
- key responsibilities,
- goals and major projects
- individual
achievements and accomplishments.
Organizational
& Job Competencies
The first two sections of the employee
performance appraisal form focus on the “how” of the job, the way the
individual goes about accomplishing his results. Here we identify and assess competencies
– the behavioral elements of the job. To start, top management should identify
a small number, usually about a half-dozen or so, of the competencies expected
from every member of the organization, regardless of the individual’s job
or level in the company. Since they apply to all, these universal or organization-wide
cultural competencies might include attributes such as:
- Customer
Focus
- Communication Skills
- Learning and Continuous
Improvement
- Team Player
- Interpersonal Skills
The
other behavioral element of an employee performance appraisal assessed in a perfect
form is job-specific competencies. The talents and skills required for success
as a professional individual contributor like a programmer or accountant or engineer
aren’t identical to those needed for success in a leadership job.
In
professionals’ jobs, such skills as analytical thinking and achievement orientation
might be indispensable, while in the leadership jobs greater emphasis might be
placed on developing and retraining talent and people management and command skills.
Of
course there will be overlaps — technical skills and decision making are
competencies important in both job families. But the ideal employee performance
appraisal form will allow for the identification of those competencies that have
a high correlation with job success in the specific position the employee holds.
Safety is sure to be present on an appraisal form for an operator’s position;
relationship building better be assessed if the employee works in the sales department.
Organizational competencies and job-specific competencies
are the first two elements of an exemplary employee performance appraisal form.
That covers the HOW component of the job. Now let’s look at the WHAT component
— the results the person actually accomplishes. Again, there are two major
components:
Key job responsibilities and goals and major projects.
Key
Job Responsibilities
The third element, key job responsibilities,
represents the major aspects of an individual's job – the big rocks of the
position that ideally would be listed in a well-written job description. Got obsolete
job descriptions? No problem. Just provide space in this part of the employee
performance appraisal form for the manager and employee to identify in simple
verb/noun form the most important responsibilities or accountabilities of the
job incumbent: Assess patients, assure customer satisfaction, train operators,
develop marketing plans, sell shoes, etc.
Few jobs have
more than a half-dozen key job responsibilities. If you come up with more, you're
probably listing minor tasks and duties that are performed in order to accomplish
a key responsibility.
Goals & Major Projects
Goals
and major projects represent the other half of those elements that cover the results
aspect of a job. Goals are big deals. They go well beyond the key job responsibilities
listed in the position description; well beyond the predictable cheaper/faster/better
expectations.
In truth, real goals are transformational
– they are visionary and long-term. They transform the nature of the position
itself. “Keeping the network up and running,” for example, is a well-stated
key job responsibility. In comparison, “Developing a system that eliminates
network failures,” is a formidable goal that will totally alter the nature
of a network administrator’s job.
Many people in an
organization also take on special projects or assignments over the course of a
year in addition to their specific job description duties. Too often their contributions
are unheralded in their annual appraisal. The goals and major projects part of
the form is also the place for the assessment and recognition of these contributions.
Achievements & Accomplishments
The
final element of an ideal employee performance appraisal form is the one that
research suggests is the most important: A brief enumeration of the individual’s
most important achievements and accomplishments. Ever since the original GE studies
in the early 1950s, researchers confirm that growth and development result more
from building on a person’s unique strengths than from attempts to shore
up deficiencies.
There’s your perfect form: two sections
that deal with organizational and job-specific competencies, two more that concentrate
on key job responsibilities and goals, and a final summary of the most important
things the individual did to further the organization’s mission, vision and
values. When you’ve got those elements in your form, you’ve developed
a perfect employee performance appraisal form.
