Employee Disputes Appraisal Feedback: How Should HR Handle This Situation?

Dear All,

I am facing a situation where an employee is not ready to accept his manager's feedback for his appraisal; hence, the appraisal is not closed, and the company has revised his salary to the salary before the appraisal. The employee feels this is unjust to him. He is saying he can sign the form mentioning he has accepted it and specifying what he has not accepted. As an HR professional, what action should I take?

I handle consulting services to provide Performance Management System (PMS). The issue you have described is not new. It happens everywhere. Perceptual differences between a manager and their subordinates are common. Subordinates often nurse grievances against their manager for underrating. That is why when I design PMS, I do not leave room for "non-acceptance."

Now, at this stage, you have two options. The first one is to tell the junior firmly that the manager's rating is final, and no disputes will be entertained. However, this type of management style will only suppress the conflict and may not resolve it. Embers of discontent may extinguish temporarily, but they could flare up again. The other option is to understand why the junior is refusing to accept the rating given by the manager. Could you identify the points of agreement and disagreement? Regarding the disagreement, is there evidence with either party? Let your General Manager (GM) call both parties and sort out the issue.

Cleft Stick

The issue has caught you in a cleft stick. Whichever side your GM gives the verdict, the other party could feel let down. Possibly, the authoritarianism of the GM may not bring it to the fore, and your organization may create a facade of harmony. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen how long it lasts.

Learning from the Incident

The incident teaches all HR professionals in general, and you in particular, the importance of measurement in Performance Appraisal (PA). Subjectivity fosters vagueness; therefore, you should determine if the PA is based on any vague parameters. Secondly, our job is not to resolve the PA conflict between managers and subordinates but to take steps to prevent it. The incident could set a trend, and in the following years, there could be more objections. Therefore, to avoid the recurrence of such incidents, you may need to institute a robust PMS designed by an external consultant. Feel free to call me for further discussion.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Dear Bhavya,

The best approach is to quantify the appraisal parameters. In this way, every feedback will be transparent and quantified. The employee will also have less chance to confront since it will not be an open-ended process.

Regards,
Parikshit

Mr. Dinesh Divekar has raised some pertinent points to help solve your problem. I wish to add a few more to assist you in gaining clarity regarding the possible actions that can be taken. I see a few positives in your post. The subordinate has not disagreed entirely, which narrows down the focus area.

Identifying Disputed Points

List the disputed point/points. If they are few, it is better. Why is there a dispute? It's a clear-cut case if the manager has not defined the performance measure in advance or has not defined it correctly, and if the subordinate has not understood or not executed it correctly. In a cloudy case, another possibility may arise due to vague goal/KRA formulation and an equally ambiguous response to it.

Try to provide an explanation that fits into any of the above scenarios and then make your recommendation to your GM.

Regards, V. Raghunathan