The Hindu Business Line : Appraisals get a scientific edge

What would you do if the much-awaited appraisal passed you by? You should probably be heading for the boss' cabin for there is a good possibility he will tell you precisely where, how and when you missed the appraisal benchmark.

"Companies increasingly want to base their performance management and appraisal on scientific mechanisms," says Mr E. Balaji, Chief Operating Officer, Ma Foi Management Consultants, a human resources (HR) firm that designs and implements performance management systems.

Most large companies have internal processes to evaluate performance. However, they are turning to third-party HR firms to either help improve these processes or outsource them entirely, say sources. As a result, there has been a growing dependence on scientific evaluation systems that rely heavily on metrics.

Metrics are classified into performance and behaviour monitoring. "Earlier, organisations did not include behavioural metrics to determine appraisal. But today, it is given the same weightage as performance metrics in the evaluation process," says Mr Ganesh Chella, Chief Executive Officer, Totus Consulting.

Metrics are also role-dependent. For instance, a fresher could be evaluated across parameters such as return on investment after training and the pace of acquiring new skills.

A procurement manager could be evaluated on cost-reduction and vendor efficiency, a sales employee on his cross-selling and up-selling abilities and a call centre employee on specifics such as agent utilisation, average speed of answer and schedule adherence.

All these parameters are given appropriate weightage before being bundled into a composite score. This score is then benchmarked against appraisal levels in the company.

To ensure that the appraisal is not entirely metrics-driven, a manager is allowed to give inputs that have 20-25 per cent weightage in the score.

"This helps employees who underperform due to personal problems. If a manager is aware of such a problem, he may overlook the candidate's performance and give him a fair chance of appraisal," says Mr Balaji.

If such scientific performance evaluation systems are implemented transparently, an employee can track his evaluation, see performance benchmarks and work in accordance with them.