!!! Year End Appraisal !!!

Appraisal is one of the most awaited things in every service person’s life. The way we were eager to know about the results in school and college after exam with high expectations, in the same way we all are eager to know about our appraisal ratings. We hear rumors about appraisal on floor like it will be out this week that week and etc.

Before managerial appraisal most of us have the self-appraisal thing. Usually in every portion of it like Project Delivery, Innovations, Organization Help & etc. we rate our self-highest everywhere. As we all think like before getting something from someone else why should we don’t consider we did best and actually this thinking is absolutely correct, it’s human natural reaction on every action he/she does. One more thing in addition to this is while filling that self-evaluation we just copy pastes the context from last year document or from colleague’s document. J J J

Now during the period of FEB & MARCH every year first we had rumors about it & suddenly on any day in between we get the mail. In that most of us don’t aware about it because they work at client location or on client machine so they don’t have internal mail access as well, then till evening some or the other way they also got know that appraisals are out, so they also rush to internal mail box for checking it.

After checking it everyone get shocked some with happiness some with anger & etc. Now from here the main drama starts like manager is in tension how to face those people in team who got lowest & middle ratings in team. Some employees are happy always with whatever they get some are like in full anger some are like why me always. Some managers are like taking all the credit of employee’s work, continuously telling him/her that they got higher because of that manager only. Ohhhh one thing I forgot to say here that in so many big organizations during the end of year lots of employees get swapped with other teams & there manager get changed at the peak point of year end appraisal, they say this is because of billing issue but till date at least I am not satisfied with this answer why only at this time they had billing issue why?????

Then we had our one to one discussion with our manager, here picture is like few who got highest rating those are not all interested in such discussion that doesn’t even matter at that time because in all way they are more than happy & already exceeded the manager’s expectations. But main thing is taking with other some of the managers feel fear to talk with lowest rating guys because they also know this is not right way to lead any team but what they can do, they are also under someone in hierarchy & they had quota for giving the ratings in there team. Seriously in this time managers ask to employees when you have time to talk on this, when I got such reply I said hello you are my manager & why are you asking such questions to me.

         

In the discussion most common replies we get are like,

1.                 You are isolated, you don’t talk to me much.----man listen we came here to work not to talk & telling about isolation boss we have very good relationship with more people on floor than you not even the colleagues we have good relationship with other staff as well like security, support team, cleaning team. We are not talking much with you it doesn’t mean we are isolated, it also mean for doing normal chit chat we choose others because either we respect you as manager or you are isolated with your senior or old friends.     

2.                 You didn’t stop till late. ----hello boss why should we stop till late as we get paid for 9 working hours we work only 9 hours right. As you also know for any kind of hard work if use this 9 hours productively it will get completed then why should we stop???

3.                 You don’t have visibility. ----hello sir/mam who is manager here you or me? You right then what is your work to manage the things & check that everyone is working correctly or not right. Or it is like we should tell you every time that we are doing this this or that like developing, testing, migrating, giving KT, going to weekend organization programs, calling to client & all. Or ohhhhh we should work till late?? If there are no such issues that need your help or something which we can manage why should we tell you or why should we stop till late. We will complete that & just leave. We are here to meet the time lines right yes we are doing that & if any risks are there we are also giving weekly status also then how come you say you  are not visible. On this I will just say one thing on this to you do your work properly definitely you will get everyone’s visibility.      

4.                 One of the silly reason you never talked with client.---Hahaha if the project we are working on don’t have any client interaction then why should we talk with them, do we need to call them for chit chat hahahaha.

5.                 Another silly reason when you sent the mail to me mentioning in mail like please find the attachment & that time you forgot to attachment.---- Ohhhh this is the reason for appraisal rating, thank you so much for telling me it next time onward we will never ever do such mistakes J J J

6.                 The person with whom your comparison happened did better than you. --- Sir/Mam first tell me what is comparison it means you did compared my work with other same designation person in our team right as per our industry standard right. Tell me how you could compare a person working totally on complete different project or different module in same project his/her challenges or tasks will be totally different from us right, what requirements they have are different than us then where is the comparison point to you. Sometimes there will be cases like person with different experience will be on the same designation & get compared for appraisal you tell me is it make any sense to compare a person with 4 year experience with 6 to 8 year experience or vice versa. Sometimes there are cases like person is from your community or you place you will give more. Then I will just say well at least you care for your people but you are heading it in wrong direction. Let me tell you what comparison means you did your education right there everywhere we used to have orals, exams & etc. but whoever is appearing for it get same chance like same subject to study in same time that is called fair comparison. We know you will say that was education and it is work but if it’s not fair then who needs to change it. Listen rules are for us, we are not for rules.       

7.                 Your previous manager didn’t push us for your rating. ----Just (dash dash) the system here or higher management, that person says he pushed but you haven’t accepted it & you says reverse. I don’t know who is right here. Is it my mistake that at the time of appraisal you get allocated to me as my manager??

8.                 Yes sometimes we get reply like you tried to access the place where you didn’t have the access. --- Answer me you allocated me to this team or project & you are continuously pressurizing me to come at this place & take the knowledge transmission of the project from the person who is leaving the organization due to some or the other reasons(you all know switching any organization means ---- ). Now it is your responsibility to get me access for that location as soon as possible right. Then also due to your pressure or humbleness we accept to take that knowledge transmission on your approval by doing all necessary stuff at the start of day on entry door. Then after for going out or in we need to get any others access & that person needs to come at door every time. Now suppose for going washroom and all every time we need to get access so this time rather than taking that person to the door we just took his/her access card & did washroom stuff & came back within 5 min & suddenly some higher authority sees this & asks for Identity Card and create very big issue on this matter then you says that I know everyone does this but we can’t do anything this time because the person who made this issue big is higher authority. We can just apologize for it, hello we are organization person only we too know nothing’s going to happen with us but because of you all or that higher person wants to show his/her power or doing his/her work very promptly you just want BAKRA & every time some or the other person becomes that. 

9.                Sometimes the funniest reason comes like during last whole year total 10 times you forgot your ID card while coming to office. --- Sir/Mam we are normal human beings who can forgot anything at any point of time & if this is the mistake for getting such rating then fine. We will improve on it J J J.

10.           One very common reason comes like you never take sessions on technology or else. --- Sir/Mam in our degree and education we did all these things here we came for work & you tell us we should focus on timely delivery or these stuffs. In the sessions you too know who like to come & those who come they are also like just physically setting there nobody is interested in that session.

11.          One reason related to work we do in our spare time like you sleep on your desk & you do social networking. --- Sir/Mam if in given time or before time we complete our task then what ever we do with our spare time that is our challenge you don’t worry about it. We get paid here because we gave our valuable time & efforts, it doesn’t mean we should talk, walk, eat, drink when you say. We are employees not slaves is that clear.

So guys these are the main basic reasons we get in that one to one discussion. After this most of the guys fight for changes in it. Please be clear it’s not any exam so that we do rechecking and get better marks, once it’s given then that’s all no one will change it, but in extreme conditions they will agree to give you better hikes (chances are like 1 in 10000) but they will not change ratings once given. Why because it’s not in there hand as well because some else is there above them & in this way a chain goes up in hierarchy till the top most person of organization. Even though manager wants to give highest ratings to all team members they can’t. All organizations we work are very good but people who run it are not, because of such limitations or other reasons.

So what normal employees do either they will switch from one organization to other or they will not work the way they used to work before appraisal. Then management shows us the Onsite Lollipops or Carrots of Internal Recognition's and at the next year end same thing happens again. In ancient day’s commanders of army used to switch from one king to other and now a days one organization to other.     

So rather than getting angry on anybody just keep smiling be happy, understand their situations as well, at their point they are most helpless people in the world. So just maintain the good relationship & move on.

Thanks & Regards,

Rahul Chandure.