Struggling with Evaluating Senior Managers? Seeking Guidance on Performance Appraisal Criteria

I am working as an HR Manager in a publishing company in Gurgaon. It is quite easy to judge the performance of employees, but it is really difficult to evaluate senior employees like managers and team leaders who have a high salary range. Please provide me with a template or guide me on the criteria for performance appraisal of managers and vice presidents.

Performance Appraisal Policy and Performance Management System

Measuring the performance of managers is not difficult per se. You need to identify the measures of performance for their departments. It appears that you do not have a proper Policy on Performance Appraisal (PA) well in place. When employees join the company, during induction itself, they should be told when their appraisal will take place. The salient features of the policy could be as below:

- Appraisal may be done quarterly. An appraisal cycle of one year is too long. Nevertheless, a salary hike may be done on 1st April or 1st October.
- For employees who join in between, their first PA date can be decided in the policy.
- The percentage of the salary hike should be linked to the score of PA.

The important point is PA concentrates only on individual performance. We need to go beyond and measure business performance. For this, you need to have a well-designed policy on Performance Management System (PMS). Irrespective of the type of company, principles of PMS do not change. These are common across all industries. While establishing PMS or designing the KRAs, the following needs to be noted:

- Do we measure what deserves to be measured?
- Do KRAs pass the test of the SMART principle?
- Have the direct and indirect costs been identified for all departments? Are these costs included as KRAs for the respective HOD?
- Has the staff at the lowest level understood the importance of measurement or how to design the measures? Mere Manager or HOD understanding the concept of KPIs and KRAs is not sufficient. They attain the department's KRA through their subordinates. What if the Manager/HOD does not get sufficient support from the juniors?
- Are there any staff who are kept off the hook?

I have been replying to posts on PMS time and again. Click the following link to refer to one exhaustive reply: https://www.citehr.com/511936-pms-company.html

Though the heading is for IT companies, the reply is applicable to all types of industries. In the above link, you will find several other links. Go through all the links patiently. It will improve your awareness of the subject.

For further doubts, you may call me on my mobile number. Talk to your management and find out whether they are ready to hire paid services of an external consultant like me. For more information, you may call me on my mobile.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar