AVOIDING PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL MISTAKES

If You Think Employee Satisfaction, Productivity And Performance Are Important!

Mentioning "Performance Appraisal" gets such mixed responses because people have such mixed experiences. If your respondents aren't hostile, or scornful, then they're clearly not impressed.

Why are performance appraisals seen to be negative experiences? Isn't a performance appraisal simply a meeting between a manager and a member of his or her staff, where together they appraise the staff member's performance during the year (or other time period) and agree on goals for the coming year?

Well, that's the theory.

In reality, many managers handle performance appraisals quite poorly. And the result is not only an unpleasant meeting, but one where the manager and his or her staff member never quite understand each other, never quite appreciate the other's point of view, and never quite settle on appropriate goals for the coming year. It's almost inevitable that the staff member will end up less happy and less productive than he or she was before! 

Below are few big mistakes that managers often make in conducting performance appraisals. Fortunately, these mistakes are easily avoided once you make a conscious effort to avoid them.

Waiting For The Performance Appraisal To Give Feedback:

This is the biggest mistake and the most common one. It's where a manager fails to give someone adequate feedback on their performance during the year, and then dumps it on them in the performance appraisal meeting. Unfortunately, the feedback is almost always negative, so the employee ends up sitting there in shock -- at best, wondering why his or her manager didn't say something sooner; at worst, feeling unjustly victimized. And you have to wonder -- how can a manager expect an employee to do the right things, the right way, if the manager hasn't provided any guidance or feedback all year?

The Solution: Managers should make it a habit to tell their employees if they've done a good or poor job, and if it's a poor job, explain how they can do things better in the future. There should be no surprises in the performance appraisal!

Over emphasizing Recent Performances:

It's all too human to remember, and give greater weight, to recent events rather than earlier events. However, this can lead to an inaccurate and unfair assessment when it comes to reviewing an employee's performance.

The Solution: Take note -- and ideally take notes -- of the employee's work throughout the year.

Being Too Positive Or Negative:

Some managers feel uncomfortable giving negative feedback and consequently, can omit to give employees the constructive criticism they need to improve. And then there are other managers who are instinctively too negative, leaving the employee wondering if they can do anything right! While, as a manager appraising someone's performance you should give your honest opinion, you also want your employee to understand and appreciate what you're saying.

The Solution: Instead of being too positive or negative -- which can result in the employee not believing what you say -- think about the impact on the employee you want, and communicate your feedback accordingly.

Being Critical Without Being Constructive:

Some managers can be too critical and neglect to provide any constructive advice on how an employee can improve. This doesn't help the employee or the manager. Even if your criticisms all have merit, if you don't explain how the employee can improve, he or she is likely to miss the validity of what's being said and simply think he or she is being victimized. Not to mention the fact that his or her performance won't actually improve.

The Solution: If you need to be critical, be constructive too!

Talking Not Listening:

The final big mistake that managers make in performance appraisals is doing too much talking and not enough listening. These meetings are supposed to be interactive -- where the manager doesn't simply relay his or her own appraisal of the employee's performance during the year, but also listens to the employee's viewpoint. 

The Solution: If you have criticized the individual's performance, it's not only fair, but important, to get the employee's response as to why he or she may have underperformed.

Moreover, a key objective of the performance appraisal is to agree on goals for the following year. How can there be true agreement and commitment to such goals, if you don't learn the employee's point of view? One can avoid the above mistakes -- it just takes a little effort. It's certainly worth it, if you think employee satisfaction, productivity and performance are important!

HOW DIFFICULT IS MANAGEMENT ?

Practice Where Art, Science And Craft Meet

A manager's most important, and most difficult job is to manage people. You must lead, motivate, inspire, and encourage them. Sometimes you will have to hire, fire, discipline or evaluate employees.

Management is nothing but making things to be done by the people. Now how difficult is the management? Well there is a common proverb in most of the languages that "One can take the horse to the pond but you cannot make her to drink water" but in management this principle is not accepted, you have to make that horse to drink water under any circumstances with in the given time limit. 

In order to make the horse drink the water, we have two options:

• Get some carrots and put into her mouth. After eating the carrots the horse will drink water, but what if the horse refuses to drink water after having the carrot.
• Then, we need to go for the second and final option by getting some red hot chillies and put it into her mouth.and then the horse will definitely drink water.

So what is the difference between the first method and the second method. 

The first method is the motivation and the second method is compulsion. The motivation is the best method but not an easy one, because motivating a person is not that easy. where as the second method compulsion is the final alternative when you have left out with no options. 

Management is a difficult task but one can make it easy if the Management Person possess enough management skills like motivational skills, negotiation skills, Timely decision making etc.

HR BRANDING

Best Company To Work For

We start our day with a morning jog in Reebok athletic shoes, we go to work dressed in a Blackberry suit in a new Volkswagen car, and stop along the way for having a cup of coffee at Cafe Coffee Day.

These aren't mere shoes, clothes, cars and coffee we are talking about. These are brands, and chances are you have to choose them not only because they meet your basic requirements of clothing, transportation and sustenance, but also because the brands promise a certain quality and style that you've come to rely upon. Great brands provide a source of identification and assurance of quality. These brands simplify decision-making and communicate the value they create for their customers. And great brands make and keep their promises. These characteristics differentiate great brands and cement their leadership credentials.

Branding in HR has traditionally been limited to the employment function. The HR branding has become a topic of great interest. The success of an organization relies upon excellence in execution. Historically, corporate leaders have looked to other functions, such as product development, marketing and sales, to drive corporate success, today more and more eyes are looking towards HR as the call for need. Success of the brand depends upon of awareness and relevance. If target audiences are not aware of the brand, if their internal and external customers don't notice your effort in the cacophony of messages they receive each day, then we will never have a chance to be relevant. And if they become aware of you, if you capture their attention and fail to deliver relevance, then they will learn to ignore you.

Customers differentiate firms by their products. Marketers have traditionally used "The 4 Ps" (product, price, position and promotion) to set the products of their firm apart from those of the competitor in the market place. Employees now differentiate their jobs by HR branding . The 4 Ps of HR are People, Pay, Position and Prospects. As the functions of HR started spreading across the organization, the services rendered by the HR department to the employees can be treated as the same thing as selling services to the external customer. Hence, the HR department should care about its brand identity.

For a company to be successful, it has to attract, motivate and retain the best and brightest, making it competitive in the race. As organizations are complex, open systems, single interventions are not enough. The best organizations have compelling people strategies that are perfectly aligned with the organization's business strategy. Once the people strategy is aligned with the business strategy, you can begin creating a great place to work. The HR brand has to be aligned congruently with what the company delivers to the employee, customer, public and shareholder.



In today's knowledge driven economy, HR plays a strategic role in bringing in the right kind of people into the organization. In a sense, HR is the first face of an organization for a new prospective employee. Market research has revealed that strong brands contribute to strong competitive presence. In this way, the HR in its new avatar, the importance of branding HR follows quite as a corollary.


The challenge faced while structuring the brand is to establish new deliverables to sustain strong partnerships with both internal and external customers. The ability to see the big picture and to deploy the resources to address to this big picture will be more important than ever, based on the interactions of HR department with both internal and external customers.


Brand as a System
We can consider brand as a system. The brand system has four components which are inextricably tied and interdependent.


Offer: It is the service or a group of services that the brand renders to its customers, and if the offer is complex or it is difficult to explain, then it would be very difficult to communicate the offer to the target segment. Hence, the offer should be clearly described for a brand to be successful. Example: Compensation packages, Training programs, Employee assistance programs, a good working environment, etc.

Identity: Identity is defined as every thing that assists in attracting attention, setting expectations and making an impression. Names, logos, slogans, advertising, packaging, vision and mission statement of the HR department make up the brand identity. This provides information to employees to determine an impression on the HR department.


Experience: Brand experience is the aggregate of all the perceptions that result from the interactions with a brand. But all the experiences are not equal. Employees assign different levels of importance to different facets of their experience.

Image: Brand Image is what people think of the brand. This is primarily based on the interactions with the HR department.

Why do we go for brands? The answer is simple -.reliability. It’s the popular brands which provide this reliability. Attracting knowledge workers has become a Herculean task for the HR department. Only the best practices and the best environment can assure their interest in working for your organization. The practices and policies of the HR department and its outlook create a certain brand for the HR. The better the brand, better are the chances that you attract the best talent. The focus in our paper outlines all that are required to make HR the best brand.

INDUCTION / ORIENTATION PROGRAMMES

What You Should? What You Should Not Be Doing?

Orientation or Induction is the first important step in the process of Human Resource Management. It involves familiarization of the newly appointed employees to the work environment of the organisation as well as to the fellow employees. Induction is a socializing process by which the organisation seeks to make an individual its agent for the achievement of its objectives. The new employees should be oriented to the organisation and to its policies, rules and regulations.

Does Induction & Orientation mean the same?

Induction means introduction of the company as in the overall preview of company.

Orientation includes introducing new employees to the other employees of the organisation making them more familiar with everyone so that they get the idea of the kind of company they will be working for and generating a level of comfort within the organisation.

What is the need for an HR in this communication?

The HR is involved in the formulation of the policy and guidelines for the company. So the interaction about the culture of the company can be better told by HR. Induction is like an opportunity for the new employee and the HR as well. The new joinee is in more receptive state during the induction, and they will carry the information all along their working tenure. It becomes hard for an employee to know who are the people they can get in touch with hence it’s imperative that HR form a part of the induction program not only as a presenter but as a convener!

As a new hire / new employee what are their expectations out of this session?

The expectations can be divided into 3P’s Person, Premises, and Process.

• PERSON: The concerned persons, The Reporting Manager, who’s who of the company.
• PREMISES: Canteen, Conference room, work station etc.
• PROCESS: Leaves, Appraisal, Training, compensation, other benefits, other polices, compensations, employee discounts, employee engagement practices

What are the new trends (apart from PPT, Word docs, Manuals) in this communication?

• Something handy to read out for the new employees can be given. 
• Have a good brochure designed.
• Place important information on the desktop wallpapers.
• create a ready to use flash presentation that is self readable.

What kind of an experience are they expecting to go through during this induction?

• The new hires should find it as involving as possible. Have a walkabout arranged, showing the facilities, cabins, exits, cafeteria, library, may be also introducing them to people along the way.
• They should be made to believe that they have made the right decision by choosing your organization.
• They should feel that they are aware of the culture and hence can easily blend in.
• As the employee is new to that specific environment, so he/she must be looking for someone who can clarify the doubts. You can may be add another badge to their I-card which may read "I am new, so were you! So please help me" or "I am willing to learn, Are you willing to teach" or "I have joined here to help our organization grow" or " I am the newest member of the family". You can take the badge from them after 1 month.
• The new employees should be introduced to their Reporting Managers.

How / What is the best way of communicating to the new hires?

• By way of a flash presentation.
• By face to face program, which is always great. Make it more like a facilitated training program with a lot of activities like energizers, introduction sessions etc!
• HR should make the new employees feel as he / she is a part of the organization and is always welcomed for any support.
• Have a corporate video made and presented, that contains the job that you do, welcome note from the board and the heads, testimonials by employees. This has a really good impact since many times the management may not be available!

Who is the best person to communicate?

The HR Assistant Manager, HR Manager, HR executive! However make sure that if there is a group or even a single person induction, then the head honcho viz President, CEO, CFO get to meet the new employees!


When designing an Induction / Orientation Program, you should ask what the employee needs to know and what the organisation needs them to know in the first 24 hours, the first week, the first month and the first year.

STRESS MANAGEMENT

Give Your Stress Wings And Let It Fly Away !!

Stress in the workplace can make people dread walking in to the office every morning and, make them worry about their jobs at night. When staff is unhappy, they are less efficient, less effective and more likely to squander work hours or quit. Stress affects not just morale, but a company's bottom line.

The HR department is often charged with creating and promoting corporate culture. Yet in the day-to-day scramble of running a business, it is employees and management themselves who create the climate — of stress or calm, discontent or satisfaction. Even so, Human Resources can step in and play a critical role in managing workplace attitudes and behaviors. By maintaining open lines of communication between the HR division and other departments, policies can be enforced and early action can be taken to prevent critical issues from arising.

HR should regularly assess the attitudes and practices of an organization's managers and identify areas of concern. HR should be the friendly, helpful, go-to division that can provide diplomacy and guidance to help managers effectively guide and support their staff. HR can also implement programs that encourage positive attitudes, relationship building and a generally healthy lifestyle. Not all stress is bad; good stress can motivate workers to stretch themselves and meet a new challenge. Not all stress comes from the workplace. Financial difficulties, marital problems and other stressors originate in employees’ personal lives—and there’s not much that HR professionals can do to change those issues.

Stress Management @ PricewaterhouseCoopers:

• Two years ago, PwC restructured work teams to promote employee work/life balance. Instead of having one employee per client account, the company created teams of employees who manage a group of clients. If an employee is out of the office, other team members can cover for him. With the new structure, “personal obligations—attending my son’s baseball game that afternoon—are factored into the plan. Staffing options are greater when you draw upon a team.
• At PwC, managers get reports on whether employees are taking vacation time. Posters with pictures of beaches pose the question: Have you taken your vacation? The firm’s campaign “raises awareness. People need to disconnect from work, spending time with their families or following a passion, not chained to e-mail or the phone every day.”
• If a PwC employee sends an e-mail on a weekend, a pop-up screen reminds the individual, “It is the weekend and important to disconnect and allow others to do the same. Please send your e-mail at the beginning of the workweek.”
• PwC offers a two-hour elective stress survival training course. “It helps participants understand root causes, how you react to stress and an individual strategy for managing stress.

Stress Management @ HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation:

• HomeBanc Mortgage Corp. in Atlanta gives employees an extra 24 hours, in addition to holidays and vacation time, that it calls “being there” time. Employees can use the time “whenever they need a couple of hours during the year to attend a school play or go to a teacher conference without using up vacation time,” says Barbara Aiken, vice president of associate satisfaction.
• HomeBanc contracts with Corporate Chaplains of America (http://www.chaplain.org/) to provide counseling services to its employees. “The chaplains visit each office once a week and are available 24/7 via pager and cell phone for employees in need,” says Aiken. “It is appreciated by associates of every faith, and even those who have no religious affiliations.” 

Research by one client, showed poor teamwork and ineffective supervision were the two most important factors leading to employee stress. It’s stressful trying to manage people, even if you have received training. It’s stressful being managed by someone who doesn’t know how to manage, and perhaps compensates for their insecurity by being controlling.

Providing training to help employees do their jobs better can be an important way to reduce stress and improve performance & efficiency. Equally important is providing training to managers, especially those whose deficient supervisory skills may be causing stress for subordinates.

Restructuring work teams. Staffing options are greater when you draw upon a team.

Encouraging employees to take vacations and weekends off. 

Offering flextime. “One of the biggest stressors is balancing work and home life. Creative scheduling helps employees. It works well for single people who are active and families trying to juggle child care,” says Von Madsen, SPHR, assistant vice president and HR manager at ARUP Laboratories, a clinical and anatomic pathology reference laboratory owned by the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Forty percent of its 1,800 employees take advantage of flextime schedules. Many employees work seven 10-hour days in a row and then have seven days off.

It is also very important to give employees more personal time. Help workers cope reducing the causes of stress is important, but many workers also may need a hand learning how to better cope with stress, even positive stress, in the workplace. Offer a variety of employee assistance. According to the 2006 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Benefits Survey Report, 71 percent of companies surveyed offer employee assistance programs (EAPs)—or provide help once a problem has been identified. EAPs provide both counseling and help resolving problems, such as with legal and elder care issues.

Some programs take a unique approach to giving employees someone to talk to like HomeBanc contracts with Corporate Chaplains of America.

Invest in stress reduction training. Stress management training courses are a useful component of a larger stress reduction strategy because the courses build awareness. The company also includes stress management modules in other training courses, such as supervisory training, which reach more employees than stand-alone courses.

WHAT IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS AND EMPLOYEES ?

Change Corporate Culture

Moms aren’t the only ones asking for more flexibility in the workplace these days. Men, Gen Y, and Baby Boomers are making the same demand. But what works for one doesn’t work all and what works for the business matters, too. We need to redesign the way business works, and you’d think women would be at the forefront of such a movement. After all, who better understands the challenges of juggling work and life outside work?

From the business side, flexible employee schedules mean global customers can be better served across time zones; bad weather doesn’t close down the whole operation; and real estate, technology, healthcare, and environmental costs can be reduced. In other words, building a flexible workplace is a strategic business decision that is good for the business and good for the employee.

If we make flexibility a “woman’s” issue, businesses and employees will lose out, according to Cali Williams Yost, founder and CEO of  founder of the Flex+Strategy Group / Work+Life Fit, Inc. Note that her company isn’t “work+life balance.” Balance, she says, conjures up visions of a benefit, a cost to the company, of employees working less. And it implies one right answer. Flexibility isn’t a benefit, it’s a strategic business plan that can lead to a leaner, more productive workplace that responds to changes in markets, client needs, and external factors while reducing healthcare (less stress means better health) and some fixed costs (if not everyone works at the same time, fewer desks are needed.) In fact, the process of fitting work and life together starts with the needs of the business: What problems can flexible work schedules solve? To put flexibility in place, “Start with a clear vision of why the organization is being flexible,” Yost says.

The second step is a conversation, in each work unit and among units. Managers and employees brainstorm and negotiate solutions that meet business goals and “fit” with employee’s lives. The manager doesn’t come up with the solution nor does the company come up with a policy: Thou shalt telecommute two days per week. It’s a collaborative effort, the results of which will differ for each unit. For employees, it’s not balance that matters anyway; it’s fit. Some people may need reduced hours; others may thrive on 80-hour weeks. Some like telecommuting, some hate it. In the course of the conversation, people tend to re-evaluate the way jobs are done, streamline processes, and make better use of technology, Yost says. This is an ongoing conversation, revisited regularly, so everyone knows that if an idea isn’t working out, it can and will be changed.

A critical element of these conversations is setting clear goals with measurable outcomes. Training is the third element of work/life fit. Employees need training to come up with workable plans that are good for the business and for them. Managers need training in managing remote teams, articulating goals, and monitoring performance.

With increased globalization; the entry of Gen Ys into the workplace; new technology; and the reluctance of Baby Boomers to go gently into that good night, the momentum for change is growing, Yost says. In fact, we may be reaching critical mass, when business as usual just isn’t good business.

Source: Forbes

DRIVE CANDIDATES TO YOUR COMPANY

Perception Is Reality When It Comes To Your Employment Brand !

Is your recruitment process based on what you know about job seekers OR what you think you know about job seekers? It is experience that matters when it comes to the ability to drive quality candidates to apply for your open positions.

A recent CareerBuilder study revealed that top talent wants to engage with prospective employers and experience what it’s like to work for their company before they decide to apply to a position – and they’re increasingly utilizing emerging technology to do it.

How do job seekers really see you? 

It's time to take a step back to consider the experience you offer candidates – from their perspectives. Below are three forms of emerging media candidates utilize today to find opportunities and research potential employers. In effect, they also provide employers the opportunity to interact with and engage with job seekers on their terms. 

The following exercises will help you see the experience you’re providing candidates – from their point of view.

Are You Mobile Friendly? Try searching for jobs at your company from your mobile device. Is your company’s career site “mobile-friendly” and easy to navigate? Are the pages easy to view and read? Can you easily search for and retrieve opportunities and information about your company? The rate at which people are using mobile devices to exchange information is growing exponentially – and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. If you don’t have a ‘mobile-friendly’ website that enables easy navigation and viewing, you’re missing out on a crucial opportunity to reach the growing number of job seekers who search for – and share – opportunities and information on their mobile devices.

Do You Engage on Video? Enter the term “work at [name of your company]” on YouTube. Then do the same for your competitors. If you were a candidate, which company would capture your attention more? As the fastest-growing medium for consuming content, videos have an ability to engage candidates and tell a more complete story that is unmatched by any other medium. Video gives companies an edge in offering job seekers a peek into the experience of what it’s really like to work for an organization.

Are You Social? Enter the term “work at [name of your company]” on Google. If you were a candidate, would you be impressed by what comes up? Now do the same for your competitors. How does your company stand out in the social space? (Or does it stand out at all?) Social media is where all of the above come together. Social networking is now the number one reason people go on the Internet, providing employers the opportunity to reach job seekers where they are truly engaged. What’s more, they can utilize social media to reach job seekers on their mobile devices and share video content with them as well (as discussed earlier).

Perception is reality when it comes to your employment brand. Only when you take a step back and truly evaluate the experience you’re offering candidates the way they see it – especially as it compares to your competitors – can you then move forward and create a more compelling reason to drive candidates to your company.