Staff Evaluation can be a waste of time

Source: The Star - 6th Nov'09

The problem is not in the concept - it is in the execution

DON’T get me wrong. I think staff evaluations are a very important part of organisational management. They have the potential to provide invaluable constructive feedback to staff at all levels, acting as a platform for improvement and personal development. Clear, honest, specific feedback can help us sharpen our performance, accelerate our learning curve.

Just look at the sporting world. World-class athletes pay coaches big bucks to give them constant evaluation, relentlessly pointing out their weaknesses, skills-gaps and blind spots in their quest for perfection.

Even a seasoned pro like Tiger Woods seeks regular feedback on his game and similarly many of us have spent quite a few dollars employing the local golf pro in our club to dissect our swings and tell us why we’re not hitting 400-yard drives on a regular basis!
So the simple reality is that feedback accelerates performance growth, hence, the value of a staff evaluation system.

The problem is not in the concept. The problem is in the execution.

Many staff evaluation meetings deteriorate into a meaningless exercise simply because no useful information is being exchanged. The following are some reasons why:

1. Many bosses only evaluate performance targets
We need to distinguish between evaluating what our staff have achieved and evaluating how they went about achieving it. I would say the latter is more critical and valuable.
Going through your staff’s performance records and telling them what targets they have surpassed and what targets they have failed to meet is an important but relatively simple exercise that most leaders should be able to accomplish with a minimum of fuss. The tough part is providing staff a critique on how they are going about their work.

A good manager, like a good coach, doesn’t merely highlight the fact that you have fallen short. They are able to offer insightful and critical appraisals of why you have fallen short and then offer suggestions for how you can do better.

I don’t expect the golf pro I have hired to spend an hour telling me that I’m not hitting 400-yard drives. I can see that for myself! What I need from him is a critical analysis of what I’m doing wrong and what I can do differently.

2. Many bosses don’t really observe their staff

To be able to offer a useful analysis of someone else’s work style and system, I need to know how he’s working. If I’ve no idea what you have been doing, or how you have been doing it, I am in no position to objectively critique your work style or method.

How many bosses/managers actually observe their staff at work? Of course observations can be conducted in many different ways. It may involve taking some time to observe them in action, but this is not the only way. There are a variety of creative ways to collect information about how your staff goes about their work. This may include collating information through 360 degree evaluation and other forms of descriptive surveys. It may also include them providing more detailed analysis of their own work approach.

I know this takes time, and the way some companies are structured makes this process challenging because you have 50 or 60 staff members directly reporting to one boss.

3. Many bosses are not honest with their staff
Some bosses are scared of their staff. They are scared that if they raise criticisms their staff will challenge their positions, that it may sour their working relationships and in the worst-case scenario, may even lead to the staff leaving.

I know situations like this, where staff threaten to leave whenever someone critiques their work. This reflects weakness on the part of the boss who clearly lacks the courage to confront flaws in members of the team, but personally I think it is the staff’s loss in the end.

When you create a situation where no one dares give you feedback, you lose, not them. You are the one who has deprived yourself of valuable fuel for growth. You are the one who has voluntarily stunted yourself.

While the rest of the competitive world is out there hungrily seeking feedback and devouring any criticism that can help them get ahead in the world, they are still some staff who happily embrace their mediocrity, comfortably sitting where they are and proud of the fact that no one can move them.

A culture of honesty requires trust to be earned from both parties. On one hand, it requires a boss who not only makes the effort to observe and develop an accurate, critical and constructive evaluation of the staff, but one who also has no hidden agenda other than to help his staff develop to their full potential.

On the other hand, it requires staff who are hungry and courageous enough to swallow their pride and be open to hearing unpleasant truths about themselves, all the while realising that this is a natural part of growth and re-invention.

In conclusion, practising a meaningful system of staff evaluation is a difficult thing. It requires the commitment of resources and the development of a culture of honesty and trust. Not easy, but certainly a more desirable alternative to a meaningless and empty evaluation process that already eats up millions of dollars worth of people’s time and energy.

by: Dr Goh Chee Leong is vice-president of HELP University College and a psychologist.