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Performance Appraisal Blues: How To Make The Most Of Your Annual Review
Nan Knight
It's time for your annual performance appraisal. Despite the fact that you get along well with your supervisor and have performed your job admirably over the past year, you're inexplicably anxious. You make a list of your accomplishments and aspects of your work and workplace that could be improved. You even practice what you will say. The door opens. Your normally relaxed supervisor seems strangely rigid. Your performance description is read aloud like a laundry list, and you learn that you've been "good" or "outstanding" in almost every category, with a minor criticism about the way you leave your research space at the end of the day. You receive a general rating of "good," the same percentage raise as everyone else in the company, a handshake, and then you're out the door. You haven't said six words.
You ask yourself, "What was THAT all about?"
Ideally, performance appraisals are an opportunity for the supervisor and employee to communicate: to review the past year and share ideas and thoughts for the coming year. Because the traditional format tends to put the supervisor in the role of judging how well the employee did-or didn't-perform, the communication tends to be one-sided. The employee feels defensive and without some control over the situation. It's a process that reinforces a hierarchical structure, rather than a team environment that many companies want to achieve.
Authors Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins would say that the performance appraisal you just went through was an empty and outdated ritual designed to cover the company in the event of future legal action. Even more distressing, your company may actually think that this annual process makes you feel better and elevates the general tone of the workplace. But, as Coens and Jenkins make clear on their Web site and in their widely reviewed book Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead (Berrett-Koehler Publications, Inc., 2000), almost no one is really happy with a business-as-usual approach to the annual performance interview.
Coens and Jenkins argue that the problem with the standard appraisal is that it attempts to do too much and ends up doing nothing at all. "No one form or process can accomplish all the things the appraisal is supposed to accomplish-coaching, feedback, fair compensation, promotion decisions, employee development, and legal documentation," they say. They recommend eliminating appraisals entirely and creating alternative approaches based on "healthier assumptions about people." These approaches would involve allowances for different management styles, varying individual employee capabilities and needs, and provisions for year-round feedback and counseling.
These authors are not alone in their dissatisfaction with traditional performance appraisals. A 1997 survey by Aon Consulting and the Society for Human Resource Management found that only 5% of HR professionals reported being "very satisfied" with their performance management systems. A number of companies have dropped performance appraisals, only to replace them with similar interview processes called by different names. Coens and Jenkins contend that these cosmetic approaches are still based on fundamental "myths" about appraisals. In debunking these myths, they provide compelling evidence that traditional performance appraisals do not motivate employees or improve performance and are as likely to result in legal action as to prevent such consequences.
The Management Perspective
Although the federal government and some state and local governments require regular performance appraisals for their employees, such regulations do not exist in the private sector. Yet the practice is firmly engrained as a routine and reliable system in which managers can prove that employees have been informed, on an annual basis and within the constraints of various laws and regulations, about the ongoing status of their employment.
A vigorous print, consultation, and Web industry serves the performance appraisal needs of HR and management staff in companies large and small. Much of the literature offering advice on performance appraisals is direct if not blunt about inherent problems in the process. Robert Bacal, author of Performance Management (McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing, 1998) describes "ten stupid things managers do to screw up performance appraisal." Among these are some of the very aspects of the process that most discourage employees: evaluating all employees by the same measures, comparing one employee unfavorably with another, forgetting that appraisal is about improvement and not blame, and incorporating the trivial and petty into the process. Bacal, who, along with Roger Fritz, authored The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dealing with Difficult Employees (Alpha Books, 2000), offers strategies through which the appraisal process can be more beneficial for both employers and workers.
Others offer advice on constructing elaborate performance appraisal rubrics that reflect a more broadly based assessment of an employee's work. Check out the sample performance standards and weighted evaluation recommendations for a hypothetical "staff team scientist" on the Zigon Performance Group employee management Web site at (free registration is required to view the examples). With more than 50 elements for judging the scientist and his or her team, the complex rubric emphasizes results-based goals for the individual, team, and management throughout the year. Although perhaps more equitable than the traditional one-employee single-set-of-goals list, such an approach seems to require much higher commitments in time and record keeping by employees and managers at all levels.
Coens and Jenkins suggest that much of this advice is excellent, but that many companies simply fit such programs into a pre-existing rote structure. The fact that many managers have-and need-books with titles such as Effective Phrases for Performance Appraisals (by James E. Neal and now in its 9th edition) suggests that the feedback most employees receive may be anything but personalized and useful. The notion that your supervisor, with whom you were chatting amiably yesterday about upcoming research projects, is busily copying phrases such as "optimally utilizes all channels of communications" into your appraisal can be discouraging.
What Can You Do?
You can't single-handedly reorient your company's approach to performance appraisal. But experts recommend that you can work toward such a change by taking several steps.
Maximize your advantages in the status quo. For the time being, you probably still have to go through a traditional performance appraisal. The following steps can help you get through it without that "what-the-heck-just-happened-to-me" feeling:
Make sure you have an up-to-date copy of your position description. This should be available from your supervisor. If he or she cannot produce it in a timely manner, your human resources contact should be able to provide a copy.
Make lists, and check them twice. Using your position description as a guide, list your accomplishments and the ways in which you performed your assigned tasks. Be specific (including dates and names) about the ways you've gone beyond the basic requirements. Try to get in the habit of keeping this list current throughout the year. You won't have to struggle to reconstruct past events just before your appraisal, and you'll be prepared in the event of any "surprise" appraisals or disciplinary actions.
Get an appointment. Some managers can't seem to organize their required performance appraisals until the last minute. They end up calling employees in on an ad hoc basis, sometimes with only a moment's notice, to hurry them through what is presented as a purely bureaucratic formality. Don't allow yourself to be rushed. This is the most basic paperwork your company has on your ongoing performance-you deserve to be heard and you ought to be prepared. Ask for an appointment and find out how long your manager expects the appraisal to take. If the answer is "five or ten minutes," make it clear that you'll need a little longer.
Practice. Sure, the sight of yourself in the mirror pretending to talk to your boss may seem a little embarrassing and perhaps unnecessary. But many employees who think they have a well-codified and coherent list of accomplishments, comments, and criticisms find themselves tongue-tied in a process that gives the manager the controlling voice. Be prepared to be concise, clear, to the point, and as brief as possible.
At the appraisal. Be a professional. That means be courteous and be prepared to listen. Accept criticism gracefully but don't be shy about responding with facts and counterpoints if you think the criticism is off target. Make your own critiques without pettiness and, as much as possible, without saying negative things about managers and co-workers. When you do offer criticisms, propose possible or hypothetical solutions that your supervisor may want to consider.
Speak up. Your supervisor may go through your performance appraisal, shake your hand, and rise to see you out of the office. That's the time for you to say, "I have a few more points I'd like to discuss before we finish." If you're told that others are waiting for appraisals, then don't leave the office without a firm return appointment, preferably within the next one or two business days.
Don't sign that paper unless you're satisfied. Most companies require signatures from employees on their performance appraisals. First, you should read carefully to see whether the text above your signature says simply that this was presented to you on a certain date OR implies that you both understand and agree with the evaluations. If you haven't said what you came to say or if you're not satisfied with the results of the performance appraisal, you're entirely within your rights to say, "Thank you, but I'd prefer to take a copy of my appraisal home to look at overnight." If your company gives employees the option to add comments to the end of the annual review or on a separate sheet of paper, by all means do so. This is your opportunity to put your side of the story in writing and be added to your personnel file.
Don't leave the office without a copy. Whether you're happy or dismayed by your appraisal and whether you sign it or make a return appointment, don't leave your supervisor's office without a copy. Performance appraisals have been known to mysteriously mutate, and you want to have proof of the document as it was originally presented to you.
Leave them smiling. Perhaps the toughest task in this process, especially if you're fundamentally dissatisfied with the performance appraisal process, is to go through it in such a way that you speak up for yourself AND remain polite, professional, and nonconfrontational. A handshake and a heartfelt "thanks for taking the extra time to deal with my requests" can go a long way toward restoring any bad feelings.
Look to the future: changing the appraisal structure in your organization. Although you're not usually one of the decision makers in your company, you may have several opportunities to affect the approach to performance appraisals:
Use the suggestion box, virtual and otherwise. Most companies and organizations have some mechanism by which employees are encouraged to offer suggestions for better management and other innovations. One large Washington, DC, insurance company even makes a monthly "suggestion for improvement" a requisite part of its employee's yearly performance appraisals. Whether your suggestion is on hard copy or through the company's internal electronic network, you'll want to be informed, offering references like the Coens and Jenkins book and specific comments on the current performance appraisal structure.
Be prepared for other feedback opportunities. Some companies have regular employee section meetings, "town hall" sessions, or retreats at which employees are encouraged (and sometime required) to come up with suggestions. Make sure that you emphasize the positive aspects of any innovations you propose in appraisals. Don't be afraid to show that you've done your research and know what you're talking about. Use specific examples of workplaces in which alternative approaches are working to everyone's advantage.
Take it with you when you rise. In today's rapidly changing workplace, you may be grousing about your performance appraisal today and find yourself in the manager's seat tomorrow. Work toward creative changes with your management colleagues and the administrative structure of your company or organization.
Granted, the performance appraisal system isn't perfect. These tips should help you feel more in control the next time you meet with your manager for your annual review.
Nan Knight is a freelance science writer and editor whose credits include Smithsonian exhibits, Discovery Channel Web sites, and a wide range of publications on radiation in medicine.
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