Yearly Performance Appraisals - IT industry inside story

Yearly Performance Appraisal

Its that time of the year where you will see a lot of actions happening around you; A lot of excitement and nail biting competitions. 
Hang on, we are not discussing IPL here, rather its about the live matches that will be played in all the corporate industries. Its the YPA (Yearly Performance Appraisal) season.

If we go by the definition "A performance appraisal is a systematic and periodic process that assesses an individual employee's job performance and productivity in relation to certain pre-established criteria and organizational objectives."

Theoretically it may sound like a fair game, but the ground results are totally different.
With Manager as the Umpire and HR as third umpire, even DRS doesn't seem to be of much use.
The rule is clear: "It doesn't matter, what right you have done for the company, but what wrong have you done with your Manager, is what really matters"

Considering the anxiety, expectations and level of discussion the “Performance Appraisal” must be treated like a board exam. 
The entire process can be broken into 3 steps :Pre-Performance , Actual-Performance and Post-Performance.

Pre-Performance :

This is the phase where the employee is required to fill 200 page document, stating all the achievements for the fiscal year and giving self-rating;

Thinking about achievements; most of the employees are found searching the black-hole of their brain, trying to think hard as to; when was the last time they were appreciated.
After the search results of the brain returning ‘No values found’, frustration is quiet visible.

Being a jugaadu employee, Suddenly, finds a smart way to search for it – 
Outlook Email. 
[Being happy, quickly updates the status on FB and twitter as ‘Feeling Smart’] 

Turns to mailbox and searches for the word “Thanks”,  Bang!

Unfortunately the results are not that good, Outlook returns all his signature as the search results 

“Thanks & Regards”.  

Holy Crap.. What next ? 

Tries another keyword "Appreciate" , Bang!

This time results are more humiliating:

                       "Appreciate, if you can get back to us ASAP"
                       "Your response is highly appreciated"


With such disappointing results, thought he would take a break from work and check his FB again; the status posted earlier had lot of comments like “Lol”,”HAHAHAHA”, “Smart.. Loll”, "#phaakaaaf" "#justIgnore, tumse na ho paayega".

With other alternatives around, he fills all the details of the form ,gives self-rating of 5. [5 being the most highest] and submits it.

Actual-Performance:  

Basically this is the result phase, where the results are discussed,you have one-one meeting with your Manager(s) to discuss the overall rating and performance. 

The manager of-course has their own perception about the employee.
I have been through such managers, who are very meticulous and they will open their Pandora box only during this meeting. 

Believe me this is the time, you feel that you are being snooped around for the entire year 

• On Jan 15, you came 10 mins late to office. 
• On Tuesday, you wore Jeans and shirt.
• You went for late lunch.
• The other day, you took 5 times sutta break.

And suddenly you feel, "Are we discussing performance appraisal or school discipline ?" , 

You look at your ID card to double confirm "If you are working in IT industry or in some Military School ?"

In the name of performance Appraisal, your daily schedule is being discussed

And when you think they are done, comes another bouncer, ~Your Weakness ,Strengths and Future road-map. 

Based on my experience the road map is pretty standard:-

1 year in industry :-  You are not even considered, your road-map takes you back to your desk. 

2 years in industry :- According to road map, you are eligible for tons of trainings.

3 years in industry :- We are looking to promote you to Sr. Soft. Engineer 

4 years in industry :- Onsite seems to be round the corner, road-map predicts you to be onsite.

5 years in industry :- Since you were onsite, there isn't any road-map.
6 years in industry :- By this time even the road-map is asking you to leave , in 5 years governments change, why are you even here.

Post-Performance:  

This is the most exciting phase, all the employees put their results in “Re-evaluation” phase,
It is as good as you are applying for re-evaluation  of your paper to University where you know what would be the end-result. In most cases the results don't change. 
This is what exactly happens with the performance results

In this phase the managers meet the employee to understand the dis-pleasure  of the employee and provide justification.

They repeat their "routine" answers, “Normalization”, "We have to maintain the bell-curve", "You have to stretch more..", "You need to learn more, improvise"

This is the thing that catches and amuses me the “Bell - Curve” and the“Normalization”.

Bell-Curve reminds me of my first appraisal, i was with my managers in the meeting room, even before i entered the meeting room, my Managers had this diagram ready on the board - ready to go..

As soon as i was seated, they began "Bell-curve is this", "Bell-Curve is that" and it went on; While this was going on, i visualized Organization as the Bull which is imposing the results on me, i knew i was hit hard by the bull's bell curve 

Still trying to recover from the bell's tong, which was hit on my head, came another explanation "Normalization" “We gave you higher side of 3, but it was reduced to 2 in Normalization”, this was sufficient enough for me surrender, i knew there is no point arguing. 

Six plus years into IT and i still don't figure out the rating system, you can keep on explaining and i can keep on arguing, but the fact is the formulae, the logic is way beyond my understanding

I think both “Duckworth–Lewis” method in cricket and “Normalization” method in Performance Appraisal system were invented with same intent ~ Both are difficult to understand.

There is one similarity between ‘South African’ Cricket Team and All The Employees , former is haunted by “Duckworth–Lewis” method, whereas later by “Normalization”.

In this fast growing informative age, keeping your employees at bay may seem to be difficult task. Every sincere person working will always give more than 100% for the company, so the appraisal done must be done in the same manner - fair, sincerely and unbiased.

To all those who are due for appraisals -  All the very best! 
For all those employees who are under the impression, that appraisals will get you increment. 
Wake up! if you need increment then switch.