Learnings: Keep the evidence!

Performance Appraisals are an integral part of every organisation though the cycle might differ! Annual appraisals are mostly common but in certain organisations, they might also have a model for six-monthly, quarterly or monthly reviews and/or appraisals .

Monthly Appraisals are usually applicable only to a certain group of junior resources but this may differ from organisation to organisation.

Be it annual or monthly, appraisal reviews are based on certain parameters like quality of work, reduction in errors, timely delivery, training compliances, value adds, appreciations received and so on.

Every month this activity would consume a lot of effort not just in terms of evaluating the resources, having one-one discussions with them wherein feedback was shared, and then before submitting ensuring that the bell curve was adhered to! This particular model I am referring to here had the flexibility where you could increase/decrease the rating next month for the previous month, just in case any you came across any factor contributed to the overall weightage, in a positive or negative way, and by providing the correct rationale/ approvals as needed.

The particular case I will refer here did not actually need a correction/change the next month, but it was a change from the initial rating submitted and needed to be applied in the same month. So, let’s assume that the scale was 1–5 and this candidate was rated 4, however before the final submission, an appreciation came through which was applicable for the said period and I discussed this with my supervisor and got the rating updated to 5. I did send him the final file but nowhere I mentioned about the change. At that point I knew, we were on the same page.

However things took a turn in a couple of months. On a similar discussion, a peer had the old records pulled out and it could have been intentional on his part to question my integrity even though the change from 4 to 5 was discussed between me and my supervisor and this peer had no business to poke his head. My supervisor seemed to not recollect our discussion and asked me to provide evidence. I had partial evidence in the form of the appreciation email the resource had received but no record of our discussion to change the rating of 4 to 5.

This was a mistake on my part and I had to accept that there was no explicit written evidence. From each mistakes, new lessons are learnt and I took a resolve to keep written evidence whenever a change was done. The matter was eventually resolved and I lost a lot of faith in colleagues but gained a lot of learning that you are mostly on your own and it’s your own diligence that will save you.

Staying alert, conscious and documenting changes will help come out of tricky situations!