Last week, I was talking to one of my friends in a reputed MNC IT company in India.We were interacting about cost cutting across organizations, recession, crisis in employment generation etc…and to my query regarding his appraisal, he responded “oh no baba, I don’t want appraisal”.

Across IT firms of large size, suddenly 'people performance' has been emerged as the top priority item and everyday news papers are telling lay off tales ...Company A laid off 300 people by considering poor performance, Company B put 1000 people in scanner, lay off likely... Are we going back to the 'savage era' where 'fear' or 'rule by stick' philosophy was the best known technique to get output?

Human being is one of the most dynamic creatures in the world. Being a person with strong belief in people and capabilities, it is hard to believe that people will stay non-performed, if adequate feedback is given.We might be getting feedback from our boss or customer but how many of us are constantly tracking feedback? Are we getting structured feedback from colleagues,reportees, customers, managers? Are we giving feedback? I would say getting feedback, end of the year just for the sake of appraisal is of no use and may not be helpful to improve individual/team performance. Also for a large organization with various bands, divisions, profit centers, I don’t think company can finalise appraisal decisions without employing normalization[normalization is logical, but when we reshape human performance in a bell curve, performance appraisal may loose its sanctity]

I think it is high time to think about a rational approach for appraisal. Why don't we go for a goal setting exercise together with continuous feedback system? If we receive right kind of feedback during the project or when we finish a project or when we finish a particular task, we can either improve ourselves or retain performance. If a team member can give feedback on any other team member irrespective of level or band, the entire team will become vibrant. Power politics will be out and more transparency can be achieved. By checking the feedback received/feedback given in association with the goal data, I think we can evaluate a person on job, in a better way.Identification of poor performers with no potential for development would be more scientific in this approach. If we employ such an approach, time and money spent on annual appraisal exercise would be saved. More importantly we can say this would be a better approach towards appraisal is in place, which ensures individual as well as organizational effectiveness.

Please share your views on this