By Sunanda Parmeshwar, IANS
Mumbai : Instead of complaining about bosses on the sly after annual performance appraisals, corporate employees can now actually rate their employers.
In many organisations, the realisation has dawned that it is not just employees who need to be evaluated but also their bosses. The annual appraisal in Indian companies is usually conducted between January and April.
Traditionally, the feedback about employees and their performance is a one-way traffic – bosses appraising subordinates. But not anymore. Several organisations have adopted and implemented a two-way system of appraisal.
This, however, is not just a method to enable employees to vent their frustrations about their immediate superiors. “It is intended to be a team building and team strengthening process,” said Robin Lloyd, vice-president and general manager, Lionbridge India, one of the largest manufacturers of credit cards in India.
“Our company is a big believer of this method of appraisal but it is not considered a cribbing exercise for employees,” Lloyd told IANS.
A multinational corporation like IT major Adobe believes superiors are not perfect, just as their employees are not perfect. “There could always be different types of impressions that different subordinates have on a single superior,” Aparna Ballakur, Adobe director for human resources (HR), told IANS.
The two-way appraisal method could help identify and create a new generation of leaders from existing staff, she pointed out.
Mumbai-based HR consultancy firm GlobalLogic’s assistant vice-president for human resources Iti Kumar said the company has also implemented the two-way appraisal method.
“At all levels, we have devised a different kind of feedback method for our employees. It is carried out round the year, not just before the annual appraisal period,” Kumar said.
He said that if employees are not “empowered to appraise their superiors, the managers or bosses tend to become insensitive to the needs of the juniors and the team suffers”.
In some organisations, employees are afforded varying levels of anonymity to ensure truthful feedback over their immediate superiors and prevent vendetta by the latter. Experts believe that the method goes a long way in helping the superior officer understand his or her own weaknesses at the workplace and adopt remedial measures with help from the company.
A growing number of companies are resorting to the reverse appraisal method as they are plagued by a high percentage of employee turnovers in recent times. They are applying three major methods like survey, questionnaire and one-to-one with the employee.
A survey among the employees helps find out the managerial, administrative, professional and general leadership qualities by which subordinates can assess their bosses.
Some organisations use questionnaires where employees submit their anonymous feedback on various questions within the leadership dimension of their reporting manager.
Based on the leadership feedback, the HR department prepares a scorecard, which is shared with the concerned manager, who in turn devises a concrete plan to improve his performance, as desired by his juniors.
In the one-to-one method, the manager meets with subordinates on a regular basis to understand the challenges faced by the employee during his routine duties.
The discussions are followed up by the manager drawing up action plans for resolving the issues raised by the employees.
AppLabs, a software company, follows a more open and interactive “skip method”.
The employees and boss get together in a room and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their team leader in the presence of a senior HR person. But this could have disastrous results too.
“We use this method to ascertain the confidence levels of both the employees and the boss,” Makarand Teje, CEO, AppLabs, told IANS.
Maersk India Pvt Ltd follows an “upward feedback method”, which is de-linked from the annual appraisal process. The purpose is not to assess but to provide valuable feedback.