The Hindu Business Line : The bonus game

Last week, I was leisurely perusing my e-mail inbox when my eyes fell upon a rather forlorn mail from one of the regular readers of this column. I will not inconvenience you with the whole e-mail, but merely the important points:

"Dear Sid,

... I also implemented several of the strategies from your last column and was able to get many of my co-workers fired, demoted or transferred to our back office in Rajamundry... However, in spite of these sound and well-planned career moves I have now hit a new bottleneck. My Human Resources manager is now trying to make me go through a performance evaluation process... . I went through a self-evaluation form yesterday while sipping a daiquiri and I noticed that I score very low on most criteria, including personal health and hygiene. I do not understand this system at all. Can you please help me with scoring highly on my performance evaluation? Otherwise my bonus will be abysmal and my Octavia will remain a dream...

Thanks and Regards,

Phosphorous Brontosaur (Not real name.)"

This e-mail took me completely by surprise. I was genuinely taken aback. The daiquiri is a horrible cocktail. But that apart, it seemed Phosphorous Brontosaur was really in need of career assistance. So I decided that this week, we will focus on yet another hypercritical aspect of a young manager's life: Performance appraisal forms and processes.

Before liberalisation in the early 1990s, young managers were under much less pressure as bonuses were mostly fixed and performance evaluation involved conversations like this one:

Employee: "Good morning sir."

HR Manager: "Oh hello. The AC has not been working for two days. I think it is the filter."

Employee: "Er, I am not from the AC repair company. I am an employee and I have come for my performance appraisal."

HR Manager: "Oh! Hmm. Which department do you work in?"

Employee: "Purchasing sir."

HR Manager. "Okay. That department near the warehouse that buys things, no?"

Employee: "Yes."

HR Manager: "Very good. Fifteen per cent bonus for you then."

Employee: "Same as last year? But I came to office every day sir."

HR Manager: "Oh. So you are that fellow! Twenty per cent then!"

Employee: "Twenty-five per cent."

HR Manager: "Twenty-three per cent and that's my last offer."

Employee: "Twenty-three per cent and free dental?

HR Manager: "Done."

Employee: "Cool!" (Smiling broadly showing several gaps in his teeth.)

If you are a young manager nowadays, with all this competition and open markets, you will have noticed that the appraisal systems today are considerably more rigorous. Superiors and human resources bigwigs will expect you to not only have come to work every day, but also to have been involved with assorted bits of office work and not to have ever stolen from the office things like staplers or conference tables.

A bad rating in itself is insignificant, like democracy in Burma (Myanmar). But not only do they appraise you and then make jokes about you during top-level meetings and the office party, (`That fellow Sidin! He scored one out of five on team work and client satisfaction!' Guffaws), but these evaluations also determine how much you will receive as bonuses at the end of the year.

This is serious business. Bonuses are not to be trifled with.

So here is a quick guide on how to make sense of all those self and peer evaluation forms and make sure you get hefty bonuses and that beautiful pearl-grey Skoda Octavia.

Self-evaluation forms: I know of several young managers who diligently fill in their self-evaluations forms and take several days to do this. They go back to all their peers and co-workers and project managers and ensure that they have reflected their actual performance over the course of the evaluation period. I have great respect for these people as they are honest, sincere and ensure that most of the bonus pool is reserved for the rest of us.

Never be honest on your self-evaluation form. In fact, the easiest way to fill the form in is to mark yourself the maximum or one level short of that on each criterion. This is not only quick and painless, but also generally goes down well with your boss who, incidentally, is pretty much fudging the form himself.

However you might want to, for a little balance on the form, mark yourself `average' on something harmless — social responsibility, corporate governance and shareholder value are good options.

Also, and this is a well-kept corporate secret, most self-evaluation forms are subsequently used by HR managers to spice up their evenings with friends and family:

HR Manager: "Guys check out this: `My areas of weakness are quantitative skills, MS Excel and corporate finance' Ha Ha Ha. This guy is our CFO dudes!"

Friends and family: "Ha ha ha. Pass the dal makhani no. Read another one please, please... "

Peer/Manager evaluation forms: These are marginally more difficult to manipulate than the self-evaluation forms and require more planning. Picture yourself sitting in your manager's cabin as he slowly marks your form:

Manager: "Sidin, you really haven't been a team player. I will have to give you a two on five for team dynamics."

Sidin: "Oh. Ok."

Manager: "Business development has not been good for you either this year. What was the drop in sales from your region? Fifty-six per cent?"

Sidin: "Seventy-four per cent."

Manager: "So that's two out of five. You at least did better than last year."

Sidin: "Hmm. By the way, last night your wife had called and wanted to know how long your meeting would take. I didn't tell her you were in the conference room with the secretary. She told me to keep an eye on you."

Manager: "You know what? I think I like your self-eval form. Let's stick to that."

Sidin: "Cool! And hope your meeting goes well today."

As you can see the line between career advancement and blackmail is very thin indeed. But then being a manager means making touch choices. This leaves us with one major step to ensuring that sizeable and largely undeserved bonus.

Appraisal interview with HR: This might seem daunting and scary to many. But just remember that even the person sitting across you is looking to make a fast buck. So smile and take it cool. If you have followed my form-filling advice, you should have no trouble at all in this final stage.

However, if push comes to shove, you can always use one of several common tools to make sure you come out with flying colours — threatening to join a competitor, tickets to Krrish or the complete Baywatch DVD set. All tried and tested methods.

So there! Now you have no excuse for your mediocre bonuses. Go get cracking on those forms. And do choose the pearl-grey model.

(The writer, an alumnus of IIM-A, was a management consultant before quitting to work on a book and a full-time writing career)

More Stories on : Human Resources | Management | Sid Says

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Testing the sensitivity of your solutions

mbas@work

E-doing an MBA programme

Management course for busy executives

Talent crisis, the biggest challenge

The bonus game

`Today, companies are forced to be transparent'

It's built on trust

Age is no barrier