Appraisal - Managerial Tips "in English" - Part 1

தமிழில் இந்தக் கட்டுரையை வாசிக்க இங்கு சுட்டவும்.

சில நண்பர்கள் கேட்டுக் கொண்டதற்கு இணங்க, தமிழில் எழுதிய மேற்கண்ட பதிவை, ஆங்கிலத்தில் மொழி பெயர்த்து, இங்கு பதிவாக இடுகிறேன்.
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I attended a 3-hour training session on Appraisal. Normally, sessions like these will trigger a feeling of boredom (in me!) in the first 30 minutes itself. But for a change, this one was VERY INTERESTING and educative as the trainer was skilled and a good speaker as well. The session was interactive too. The trainer used anecdotes and small stories to substantiate the points he was trying to make. Let us see some of them in this posting.

1. Apprasial is not about evaluating the person, it is more about evaluating the persons' performace in the past year. This particular aspect is not given importance by many managers! For the manager to assess the performance of an employee effectively, he should ask himself, "Did the employee honestly perform the tasks assigned to him/her to the best of his/her abilities?". Also, the manager needs to get into the shoes of the employee he is assessing, to make the appraisal "objective". Let us look at an anecdote, to understand this aspect.

A goldsmith melts the gold to purify it before embarking on the process of making gold ornaments. In the olden days, goldsmiths followed a technique to know when the gold attained the required "purefied state"! That is, when he saw the reflection of his own face in the melted "gold drop", he learnt that the gold had reached its "purified state". This is an invaluable lesson he had learnt from his experience. This is applicable to annual appraisal as well :)

2. The trainer gave a brilliant example to prove the point that it is not advisable to assess an employee based on his/her old experience /records or external apperance.

A farmer went to the market place to buy an ox (bull), to be used for ploughing. He came across a strong looking ox and after checking its teeth (to know the age), he asked for the price. As the price seemed to be very less, he immediatley paid the price, the buyer asked for and drove the ox away.

The strong looking ox walked with the farmer for about 40 feet and then abruptly stopped for some rest(!), again started walking for about 40 feet and stopped and this went on for a while. The farmer was puzzled and went back to the market and admonished the seller that he had cheated him. The seller responded, "Sir, that ox was previously used to pull the garbage cart in the corporation. That is why it is behaving like this. It will become alright in due course of time, don't worry!" :)

3. It is important that the Work place is such that an employee feels happy and motivated at work. To prove that this is not the case in many organizations, he gave a piece of statistics to substantiate this point!!!

Narayana Hridhayalaya considered to be the best cardiac hospital in Asia, did a survey and found out that majority of the people who suffered an heart attack got admitted on a Monday! Monday is the day when people return to work after the weekly off and it is "quite nmormal" that the work pressure is very high on Mondays :)

As the saying goes, "Children generally walk to school, but run back home" implies that children simply love home and parents more than what they get at school!

4. The trainer said that the meaning of the word "Empowerment" was generally wrongly understood. That is, You cannot "empower" an employee by giving him more responsibility and authority! You need to make that employee realize his/her self-worth (in terms of his/her knowledge, work experience, skills ...) and make him self-motivated to truly "empower" that employee! Is it not ?? This meaning of "empowerment" was a real "eye opener" for me :)

5. One can understand more about "empowerment" looking at one of the motto statements of Hewlett Packard. It says:
"Every Employee has the RIGHT to committ a mistake!"
which means that this "freedom to committ mistakes" allows the employee to come out of his/her "comfort" zone to the "courage" zone and makes the employee aspire for more. It also helps in the career growth of the employee.

As a manager, when one appraises the performance of a person working under him, he realizes that the said employee's successes tend to fall in the "comfort" zone and his/her failures tend to fall in the "courage" zone. A manager needs to keep this in mind during an appraisal.

I will continue this article in my next posting, Thanks for reading.

என்றென்றும் அன்புடன்
பாலா

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