Milind was one of our most reliable Factory Personnel Managers for several years. In a particular year, when we rated his performance better in our performance appraisal system, I congratulated him and expected him to be happy. His response baffled me. With practically no expression on his face, he said, “Look, I perform in the same way every year. It is you people who rate me differently each time.” His comment set me thinking. During 2000, following intense discussion on the issue of performance management, we re-positioned our performance appraisal purely as “development-oriented” and merely one of the many inputs for making decisions about people. We went out of our way to communicate to employees that performance rating was not a pronouncement of the organisation’s judgement on the employee.
During the past few years, a number of large and leading corporates have dramatically changed their performance management process. Some have abolished the entire process, some have positioned it as purely a “development process” and some have completely re-structured it. There have been several complex triggers for such a change in approach. The triggers include inability to establish a robust performance management system, inability to build capacity within the organisation to manage performance, sociological and generational changes among employees and the ever-changing, extremely complex business environment.
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