Struggling with 18% Turnover in R&D: Need Help Crafting an Effective Appraisal Form for IT

Hi all,

I am facing a very different problem as I am working as an HR Officer in an IT-based company. We are experiencing an 18% turnover in our R&D department. The top management has identified the issue in the performance management system due to the lack of appraisals in the past. As a result, they have decided to introduce a new appraisal system and have tasked me with creating the appraisal form.

Please suggest and share any appraisal form templates suitable for an IT firm.

Regards,
Nabeel

Performance Appraisal Policy Suggestions

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 informed about when their appraisal will take place. The salient features of the policy could be as follows:

a) 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.

b) For employees who join in between, when their first PA will take place can be decided in the policy.

c) The percentage of salary hike should be linked to the score of PA.

The important point is that PA concentrates only on individual performance. We need to go beyond and measure the business performance. For this, you need to have a well-designed policy on Performance Management System (PMS). There was a query in this forum on PMS. I have replied to this post. Click the following link to refer to the reply:

https://www.citehr.com/511936-pms-company.html

Though the heading of the post 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 [Phone Number Removed For Privacy Reasons].

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Thank you, sir, for such a kind reply. I want to ask a few things from you:

a) How to design the KPIs and KRAs in a firm where there has been no HR before a few months?

b) What can we do on an immediate basis to resolve the issue?

As I handled the entire turnover project by myself, what else can I do until the proper establishment of a Performance Appraisal system?

Designing KPIs and KRAs in a Firm Without Prior HR

Designing KPIs and KRAs scientifically is no easy task. Long experience is no guarantee of acquiring competence in designing KPIs and KRAs. To design measures of performance, you need to identify parameters of business performance, then the department's performance, and finally individual performance. If doing all this were that easy, your organization would have done it long ago. This is where the need arises to take the help of an expert who has handled PMS in different industries.

Immediate Actions to Resolve High Attrition

There are no shortcuts, gentlemen. You have witnessed an 18% attrition rate in a sensitive department like R&D, and yet you want to do something on an "immediate basis." Have you calculated at least the tangible costs of attrition, if not the intangible ones? The cost of hiring a consultant would have been far smaller than the cost of attrition. Once again, I recommend you go through the link provided in my past reply and understand the gravity of instituting PMS.

Further Steps After Initiating an Attrition Analysis Project

It's good to note that you have initiated the project on attrition analysis. But then, what is the revenue lost because of attrition? Could you find out that? You need to hire a consultant. If you wish to hire my services, then you may click here to know more about my services.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Employee Turnover Study in R&D Section

I am Nabeel, working for an IT company. We are addressing employee turnover in our R&D section. For this, we need to conduct a semi-qualitative study. We have completed our SPSS analysis but are confused about conducting unstructured interviews for the focus group study. The list of our variables is given below:

Dependent Variable:
- Turnover Intention

Independent Variables:
- Compensation & Benefits
- Supervisor Support
- Career Development
- Performance Appraisal and Feedback

I would be thankful if you could share your knowledge with us and provide some templates for unstructured interviews.

Thanks,
Nabeel