The ‘A’ word and the art of sending people to sleep!

Appraisals! There, the cat’s out of the bag! I’ve said it.

But before you all drift off into a never-to-end, apathy fuelled coma, let’s all agree that we go through this for all the right reasons. And those reasons, loosely, are: -

1. To give employees the opportunity to assess their years progress and candidly assess performance against previously set objectives
2. To set KPIs for the next year
3. To identify skills and future training opportunities
4. To discuss what they have enjoyed and let them vent on anything they haven’t enjoyed in the process (You can’t please everyone all the time!)
5. To clarify any HR or Contractual issues

Which, now you mention it, isn’t very exciting is it?




So this year, as we review 2010, we’re going to do things slightly differently by producing a ‘Brown-Paper Skills Map’ of the Idealogy business. Too jargon-y? Sorry!

What I meant to say is we’re going to try to get a complete picture of the depth of skills and expertise we have amongst our team, look at the gaps or overlaps, and then see how the map characterises us as a business.

This is important business defining stuff and we need all the help we can get, so where better to look for answers than this years Appraisal process? And it’s also important that we don’t trip ourselves up doing ‘all the right things for all the wrong reasons’. We need to remember that the Appraisal round is, first and foremost, about employees! It’s not about Appraisers thinking that only they have the skills to assess employees! Appraisals are about giving valuable two-way feedback, highlighting paths to improvement and skills development – pure and simple.

And if anyone tells you differently, then you have my permission to move swiftly on to the ‘B’ words!

Posted by Simon Dover