Appraisals: It could happen to you, anytime...

NEW DELHI: Working hard just ahead of the appraisal season may not be enough. Be prepared for surprise appraisals, throughout the year.

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Many companies such as KPMG, RPG Enterprise and BookMyShow, and technology giants such as HCL Infosystems and IBM, have begun a system of instant appraisals.

The new assessment styles have also turned informal. While some companies have turned to quick, app-based appraisals, some of them do it over a cup of coffee.

For instance, KPMG India now allows managers to catch up with employees and have a chat on the performance as and when required. “The benefit is immediate feedback and guidance, rather than delayed post mortem,” said Shalini Pillay, head of people, culture and change, KPMG India.

“In appraisals, activities that one can recall from the last few months often tends to take precedent. The appraiser may not be able to attribute certain accomplishments to the defined metrics, thus throwing a different result,” said Shamita Ghosh, deputy general manager, HR, at BookMyShow, which has a system of weekly appraisals, every Friday. “Managers get a reminder SMS that their team needs to be rated.”

HCL Infosystems has introduced weekly evaluation programme that uses a mobile-enabled platform to assess employees . The idea is to fill the binary-responses to a set of short and crisp questions in the app, there is no appraisal form. “Our focus is on self-assessment for employees and course correction, wherever required, on a weekly basis. Everything is now instant, then why to wait for a year to fix loopholes?” said Sumit Bhattacharya, executive president of strategic businesses, HCL Infosystems.

IBM also uses mobile app to assess employees. The app, ACE, is used for instant feedback on employees.

However, headhunters confess annual performance sessions still has relevance. “Changes are taking place. However, success is heavily dependent on the maturity of the organisation. A wrong sense could lead to the entire people strategy going astray,” said Pillay of KPMG.