Author: Lin Bin
2006-2- 16 12:50:56
As an important function of human resource management, the importance and necessity of performance appraisal has been increasingly accepted by many enterprises. Many enterprises spare no effort to establish a performance appraisal management system, and many enterprises employ professional consulting institutions to help establish or optimize the performance appraisal system. However, objectively speaking, not every enterprise can achieve the expected results. So some enterprises question the performance appraisal system, and what's more, they simply deny and abandon the hard-won performance appraisal system.
Undeniably, performance appraisal is a highly complex management technology, so whether the performance appraisal system itself is reasonable and scientific will affect its implementation effect. However, it is not appropriate to blame the performance appraisal system itself for not achieving the expected results. Management as a practical science, no management method or technology can be applied to any environment. The truly effective management technology is often not the most advanced and scientific technology, but the technology that best matches the environment. In other words, there are certain management assumptions and preconditions for any management technology to play its role effectively.
Performance appraisal management system is a subsystem of the whole enterprise management system, which cannot and should not be separated from the whole management system, and the operation of this subsystem will inevitably be affected by the whole enterprise management system. Therefore, an effective performance appraisal system also needs corresponding management assumptions.
Studying the performance appraisal practice of domestic and foreign enterprises, in order to achieve the expected effect of performance appraisal, different enterprises will have their own "unique skills". Some use behavior anchor scoring method, and some use critical event method; Some are assessed monthly, some are assessed annually, some are assessed directly by superiors, and some are assessed 360 degrees. It can be said that "the Eight Immortals crossed the sea and showed their magical powers". However, a truly effective performance appraisal system has the following characteristics:
Feature 1: Take the realization of organizational goals as the most fundamental starting point of performance appraisal.
Management is not an end but a means, and so is performance appraisal. Why should enterprises implement performance appraisal? Some people may say that managers are trying to prevent employees from being lazy, others say that excellent employees can be rewarded and incompetent employees can be eliminated through performance appraisal ... These are all true, but it is too narrow to define the full meaning of performance appraisal. From the perspective of management control theory, performance appraisal is not only an important human resource management function, but also an effective management control means to ensure the realization of organizational goals. On the one hand, organizations decompose organizational goals into individual performance goals through performance appraisal system, at the same time, they measure organizational status through performance appraisal, compare the status quo with future goals, find out the gap, and on this basis, adjust and optimize enterprise resources (human resources is only one of them) and management mechanisms to continuously narrow the gap and finally achieve organizational goals. Therefore, achieving organizational goals is the real starting point of performance appraisal.
Feature 2: The performance of employees' duties is the main basis of performance appraisal.
What should be assessed in performance appraisal? A very common saying is "virtue", "ability", "diligence" and "success". But is this really the case? Do you really need to assess the moral character and ability of employees every year, quarter or even month? Does a person's morality and ability change every month or quarter? Can the performance appraisal system accurately measure this change? The answer is obviously no, in fact, this understanding expands the extension of performance appraisal, and "virtue", "ability", "diligence" and "success" are comprehensive assessments of employees rather than performance appraisal. It doesn't mean that "virtue" and "ability" don't need assessment, but should be assessed in the recruitment process or in the promotion decision-making process. "Virtue" and "ability" should be regarded as the threshold of the incumbent and should be assessed before taking office. Once he has passed this threshold, we can think that his "virtue" and "ability" meet the requirements of the current position before entering the next threshold.
As the name implies, performance appraisal is to assess the performance and effect, that is to say, to assess the performance of employees' duties, specifically, performance and performance, but some employees' performance is more reflected in performance, such as salespeople, and some employees' performance is more reflected in performance, such as secretaries. Therefore, when setting assessment indicators, it needs to be set reasonably according to different positions, that is to say, the performance of employees should be taken as the main basis for performance appraisal.
Feature 3: Managers are directly responsible for performance appraisal.
Who should be responsible for the performance appraisal? Many people blame the human resources management department, and the failure of the performance appraisal system to achieve the expected results is often considered to be the ineffective work of the human resources department. This is actually a misunderstanding of performance appraisal. Of course, it is undeniable that the human resources department is the organization department of performance appraisal and should bear certain responsibilities. The main responsibility of human resource management department is to establish and maintain a performance appraisal management system that can help managers better evaluate their subordinates' work, so it is not a direct responsibility, but an indirect responsibility. In other words, without a human resources department, managers also have the responsibility to evaluate the performance of their subordinates. Only when managers at all levels know the organizational goals and how to reasonably decompose them into personal goals can the fundamental purpose of performance appraisal be realized; Only when managers at all levels fully understand the performance of their subordinates' duties can the assessment results not deviate from the objective facts. Therefore, managers at all levels of the organization are directly responsible for performance appraisal.
Feature 4: Evaluate employee performance in a quantitative way.
The organization and implementation of performance appraisal is to quantify the work performance of employees. On the one hand, the management of modern enterprises is becoming more and more refined. It is not enough to make a qualitative judgment on employees' performance, but also to describe employees' job performance quantitatively. On the other hand, the maturity of modern management science theory and technology (such as IT technology) also provides theoretical support and technical means for quantitatively measuring employee performance. The complexity of performance appraisal system lies in how to quantitatively evaluate employees' work performance. How to accurately identify the gap between employees' actual work performance and predetermined goals? How to accurately measure the gap between two employees' job performance? This is the most important responsibility of the human resource management department as the performance appraisal organization department. The human resource management departments of many successful enterprises use modern management theory and corresponding technical means to establish a set of quantitative performance appraisal system in combination with the actual situation of enterprises. There are also some enterprises, subject to their own management level, which help to establish a scientific and effective performance appraisal system by introducing external professional consulting institutions.
Feature 5: The results of employee performance appraisal are directly used for the decision-making of employee salary adjustment or employee career development.
Most enterprises that implement the performance appraisal management system directly link the performance appraisal results with employees' salary level and career development opportunities. They hope that employees can pay enough attention to performance appraisal, and at the same time make salary adjustment and personnel appointment and dismissal decisions based on performance appraisal results, which can reflect the sufficiency of decision-making basis. In fact, this arrangement has more positive significance. On the one hand, the results of performance appraisal are linked to employees' salary, so that employees can share the operating benefits of the enterprise, or share part of the operating benefits when the operating benefits of the enterprise are not good; On the other hand, the combination of performance appraisal results and employee career development can effectively realize the organic combination of employee development and enterprise development, and help to shape the corporate culture in which employees and enterprises share the same fate.
After understanding the characteristics of effective performance appraisal system, it is not difficult for us to understand that the performance appraisal system of many enterprises has not achieved the expected results because it has not established an effective performance appraisal system. So how can we establish an effective performance appraisal system? In addition to requiring the human resources department to issue a "commitment letter" or introducing external consulting agencies, enterprises should also comprehensively examine their own status quo and see if they have the conditions to establish an effective performance appraisal system. In other words, the establishment of an effective performance appraisal system should have the following management assumptions.
Suppose 1: the enterprise has a clear value orientation and goal.
Since the fundamental starting point of performance appraisal system is to achieve organizational goals, it is obvious that the prerequisite is that enterprises should have clear value orientation and goals. When discussing a performance appraisal scheme with a customer, the customer said that your scheme is good, scientific and systematic, but it is still not practical. I don't understand. He went on to say, you just gave the assessment methods and indicators, but I still can't use them without specifying the objectives of the indicators. That's ridiculous! Perhaps such customers are extreme, but how many enterprises in China have their own clear value orientation and development goals? Enterprises themselves don't know where to go, let alone performance appraisal.
Hypothesis 2: The responsibilities of employees are clear.
Since the performance of employees' responsibilities is the main basis of performance appraisal, the obvious premise is that employees' responsibilities are clear. Clear responsibilities are the premise of performance appraisal and the basic requirement of enterprise management. However, many enterprises obviously do not have this condition, especially many private enterprises. In the process of rapid scale expansion, a set of standardized management system has not been established, and the phenomena of "setting posts by people", "multi-head leadership" and "leapfrog command" abound. A customer is a typical family business, the boss is the chairman and general manager, the proprietress is in charge of finance, the proprietress's sister is in charge of purchasing, the proprietress's brother-in-law is in charge of marketing and sales, and other relatives are walking in every corner of the enterprise. It stands to reason that everyone can manage their own stalls, but this is not the case. For example, the proprietress often goes down to the workshop to direct the workers. The boss asked me how to implement performance appraisal in an enterprise like him. I joked that it would be better to have a family meeting when I have time, and the effect may be as good as performance appraisal.
Hypothesis 3: Managers have the motivation to objectively evaluate their subordinates' job performance.
Since managers are directly responsible for performance appraisal, it is obvious that managers have the motivation to objectively evaluate the performance of subordinates, that is to say, they should dare to assume the basic responsibility of a manager. However, whether such preconditions are available is still a question mark for many enterprises. Especially in many traditional state-owned enterprises, when managers know that the results of performance appraisal directly affect the income and appointment and dismissal of employees, it is natural and unnatural to give subordinates with poor performance a good assessment result, and the assessment results of subordinates with excellent performance have not stood out. "Let things be quiet" is the basic management concept of many managers. Who knows how much trouble they will get into because of performance appraisal? Enterprise executives always complain that they don't have time to ask about performance appraisal, and they don't consciously supervise whether their subordinate managers are conscientious in performance appraisal. The examination and approval of appraisal results is always a formality. Is it strange that such enterprise performance appraisal finally becomes a mere formality? This is not surprising. Blame the human resources department for not doing its duty? It's not fair! Is it unscientific to accuse the consulting company of designing the scheme? Unreasonable!
Hypothesis 4: The enterprise is willing to pay a certain evaluation cost.
Management requires cost, and the finer the management, the more management cost it needs to pay. The same is true of performance appraisal. IT costs money to design a counterexample of assessment, and the assessment scheme needs the help of IT platform, so it takes money to buy software, time for managers to conduct assessment, time to organize assessment communication, and time to record key events as assessment information ... So some managers began to complain. How can identification be so laborious? That's right! It takes money and time to make the performance appraisal system really work. From an economic point of view, since any management needs to pay the cost, whether it is worthwhile to invest the cost in management depends on whether the income obtained by the management is higher than the cost invested. Whether performance appraisal is worth making great efforts to implement depends on whether performance appraisal can bring enough benefits. Many enterprise managers are puzzled by this, because the input and effort of performance appraisal are real, but the benefits brought by performance appraisal are unknown, and how to accurately measure the benefits brought by performance appraisal is also a difficult problem. I'm afraid no one can completely answer these puzzles in theory, but successful enterprises at home and abroad tell us in practice that it is necessary and economical to implement performance appraisal management for enterprises that expect sustainable development. Therefore, enterprises should pay financial costs for performance appraisal, and managers of enterprises should pay time costs for performance appraisal.
Hypothesis 5: The existing salary level or career opportunities of the enterprise are attractive to the assessed.
The main reason why employees pay attention to the results of performance appraisal is that they expect their work to be rewarded in terms of salary or career development. Therefore, the existing salary level or career opportunities of enterprises are attractive to the assessed, which is an important prerequisite for effective performance appraisal. If employees are indifferent to the results of performance appraisal, it is hard to imagine what role the performance appraisal system will play. Some customers always complain that the results of performance appraisal are difficult to cash in when conducting performance appraisal. Everyone will be happy if the income increases after passing the examination, but if the income decreases, the person will definitely resign. Once someone resigns, the manager will never give the real assessment results, because it is easy to resign and not easy to introduce, so after a long time, performance appraisal will inevitably become a mere formality. For such enterprises, the main reason for the failure of performance appraisal is that the existing salary level or career opportunities are not attractive enough to the assessed, so we should re-examine the salary level and the construction of employee career development channels, rather than staying on how to improve the performance appraisal system.
At this time, I remembered a sentence: "Happy families know each other, but unhappy families have their own misfortunes". In fact, the same is true of performance appraisal. Effective performance appraisal system is familiar to everyone, while ineffective performance appraisal system has its own shortcomings. The performance appraisal system is like a machine. Only when many parts are normal can the machine operate normally and play its due role. If any part is defective, the operation of the machine will be affected. The more defective parts, the greater the impact on the operation of the machine. If the defective parts are not replaced in time, how can we ask the machine to run normally?