Seeking a Unique Performance Appraisal Form for CEO to Evaluate Senior Management

Dear HR Friends,

I am looking for a Performance Appraisal Form to evaluate the Senior Management by the CEO. I am looking for a SMART form that is different from the 360-degree feedback and the regular form used for other professional levels. If a CEO wants to appraise his senior management team, what sort of form should he fill out to evaluate their performance? Something distinct from the 360-degree feedback process. I am seeking a one-on-one evaluation form for the CEO and the senior manager. Please don't hesitate to email me at dm3t_qalam@gmail.com.

Regards, Hayyah

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Dear Hayyah,

I used to work for GE. There, each person agrees to half a dozen goals for the year with their line manager. These goals are set as SMART goals and reviewed regularly during the year to ensure they are met.

Also, extensive research was carried out to identify the 5 core 'values' that senior managers needed to display - Expertise, External Focus, Inclusiveness, etc. These values were then used as part of the annual assessment process.

Perhaps you could suggest the same to your CEO. If you need me to conduct surveys and interviews to identify the core company values for your firm, send me an email.

Yours

Dear Ranjit Das,

I beg to differ with you, although slightly. The company's name that you have quoted is a Fortune 500 company. What was true for GE may not or need not be true for Hayyah's company (since we do not know whether it is as organized as GE).

About SMART goals: Senior management personnel attain their SMART goals through their people. Now, if subordinates are not that competent, then how is the senior person going to attain that goal?

SMART goals are deceptive too. Setting a goal is much easier, but creating a conducive environment for their attainment is quite challenging. There are two types of goals - what goals and how goals. The former are task-oriented, and the latter are process-oriented.

A senior manager may have the know-how of setting how goals, but if the subordinates do not have that kind of caliber, then what is the use of having SMART goals?

Secondly, attaining KRA could be part of performance appraisal. But the attainment of KRA itself cannot be performance appraisal.

You have mentioned performance appraisal on the demonstration of certain values. Really, it will be great. But then that kind of organization requires a great amount of maturity, and every company may or may not have that maturity.

Ok...

Dinesh V Divekar

Dear All,

Hi and wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year. Following are my views on the above issue.

1) Irrespective of the type, maturity, and the level of competencies, etc., of team members, if the performance of a particular role has to be evaluated by the CEO of the organization, it is very significant.

a) The goal and KRA setting is a mutually agreed process, and the organizational goals override the individual goals. The organizational goals percolating down to each key function naturally define the basic minimum expectation of that function, and there would be no compromise on that. Hence, the CEO is required to set goals along with the senior managers.

b) According to me, there are no "what" and "how" goals. The set goal has to be achieved in the prescribed manner with specific supporting activities and by following the standard operating procedures.

c) If the subordinates do not have the caliber, then why keep them? If the competency needs to be developed among the subordinates, is it not one of the KRAs of the senior manager? Is people development not a goal?

d) While people are very clear about the difference between KRA and performance, it would be appropriate to define the flow of the entire process: defining the organization goals - defining the functional goals - setting the KRA for each function/role - periodic evaluation of the attainment of KRAs - correction of KRA/amendment of goals based on business situations - annual review - performance feedback - performance counseling.

Kind regards,

Dayanand L Guddin Sr. Head- HR BOBST INDIA

Irrespective of levels, you may implement goal setting. Link the corporate goals to individual and team goals. Integrate goal review with appraisal review (quantitative or qualitative). Initiate a collaborative feedback mechanism in-house throughout the year (you may use Yammer-like web-based tools if the employees are mature enough to use it). If you can instill more transparency, people will be delighted, and unnecessary power politics will go away. If you stick to a template-based appraisal alone (once or twice a year), it will be downgraded to a numbers game over a period of time.

Respected All my HR friends,

We have designed and implemented an Appraisal system which conceptually works on Financial performance, Qualitative performance, and Loyalty performance of an employee. We have designed the system in a Rating System pattern, where we collect the feedback objectively from internal and external customers/employees for the appraisee.

Regards,
Amogh

Hi,

If your CEO is an average person, then a simple appraisal sheet would suffice for evaluating the Senior Manager. If the CEO is truly a management expert, he can either redesign the sheet himself or have the HR department create a specialized evaluation form exclusively for senior-level positions.

Depending on the industry and domain function, the CEO should have the flexibility to adjust any evaluation sheet to meet his expectations. If the CEO lacks significant intelligence and astuteness, a mere "Yes sir" manager can easily manipulate him to suit his preferences.

Regardless, the appraisal sheet is a formal document that will ultimately be archived in cabinet files. The end goal should be a positive salary increment. That's about it.

Recently, I came across the appraisal sheet of a leading IT company XXXXXXX. It included sections for target work, work hours, achievable goals, non-achievable targets, and so on. The data expected from an employee seemed trivial, and the set target hours appeared unreasonably challenging. I pondered on the potential repercussions if this process were to be benchmarked against others.

By the time an employee strives to meet the target hours, he might end up debilitated, confined to bed, and unfit for a future job. The substantial salary he earns would then end up in the doctor's pocket.

Hence, my advice is not to take appraisals too seriously. It's merely a traditional process.

Regards,

Chandru

Dear All Seniors,

I respect and adore all the views given by the experienced and senior professionals, but as this is a very interesting and challenging task for the HRs, please do suggest some customized format or standard guidelines where we can use that info to develop/prepare according to the requirements and conclude in a smoother process. I am working as an executive HR in a Training company, and I am still a learner. This case seems to be very interesting, so please suggest how to proceed in this situation, as either I or somebody else might face this scenario in their companies. Looking forward to positive replies. Please correct me if I am wrong anywhere.

Regards,
Deepak S

Please guide me to design a Goal Sheet Format for my company. I work for a media company (Television Channel).

Regards

I appreciate your efforts and the responses. I would like to see a template to better understand our needs based on best practices. Thank you.