How to Get rid of Appraisal Blues?

What is Bell Curve?

The Concept of Bell Curve is used widely by Organizations to show the distribution of the performance of its Employees over a period. Its one of the most widely employed Appraisal System.

Bell Curve or the normal (or Gaussian) distribution is a continuous probability distribution. It’s a statistical method used to identify the normal distribution of a variables. In case of Employee Performance Appraisal system based on Bell Curve, the variable under consideration is the Employee Performance. The total number of employees in an organization should form a Bell Curve.

 

 

In the post "New Season of Bell Curve Haunting", I have shown how the spirit less Appraisal Foundation based on Bell Curve based Performance Appraisal makes the Performance Evaluation period a Haunting Season for employees.

The Trigger for this post

Post this year's Bell Curve season of mine, I thought there must be something that I can do to reduce this haunting…

I got my grey cells to work and then yes I found answers to make the Appraisal review a more fulfilling experience or rather I should say, reduce the probability of Bell Curve being a haunted theory :)

And the result of the brain churning is this post…

How to tackle the Bell Curve Haunting?

Lets do some Root Cause Analysis to set the context for this post.

The key input to Bell Curve is what you have done i.e Performance during a given timeframe. I feel that for Annual review, you need a strong long term memory as you have to recollect, capture and present the high points and low points for a period of 12 months. So the logic says that to make the annual review less daunting, I need to do something to augment my long term memory i.e to minimize the threat of Bell Curve, we should find a solution to record, track and quantify every project, every task, every milestone, every delayed milestones during the appraisal period. That is to create a Personal KRA/KPI/Goals/Targets Tracker.

I have created one for myself and have been using for a couple of years now. I have named it CPT (Career Positioning Tracker). The tracker is available for you to download, try and test.

This CPT (Career Positioning Tracker) of mine makes my Appraisal Review a fulfilling experience because the tracker helps me in the following Components of the Annual Review process.

• Record and Track Tasks

I use it as my daily calendar and also as my KRA tracker. I mark all the activities that I do against the Assigned KRA(Key Responsibility Area) for the year along with the timelines.

• Record Achievements and Appreciation

Any good words/Appreciations that I receive are also saved in the tracker so that I don’t have to bother the Outlook Search at the end of year. The Appreciations are key Appraisal Value points and the CPT ensures that I do not miss to record any of them.

• Record Learning's and Improvement Areas

1. Any specific Learning/Gyaan that I had during the task or project execution and I feel would be useful in future are also marked and if needed the relevant documents are saved as Object in the tracker.
2. The tracker acts as references recall the Projects, the complexities, the good things I did and the areas of improvement.

• Keep the Boss Posted

Apart from augmenting my memory, Its equally important to augment my boss's memory too and so I send this tracker to him on a quarterly basis… Do this cautiously though at your own risk :):):)

In fact, I would say, this Personal KRA Tracker is a tool to effectively execute the concept of PDCA(

plan–do–check–act or plan–do–check–adjust).

Check out this Wiki Page to know more about this Amazing management concept

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA

That was about the Tracker and the Appraisal Review, but Thinking on a wider horizon and rising above the performance rating rumble, having a personal tracker acts like a GPS for your car…it ensures you are on track, in fact more precisely on right track to achieve your goals.

Remember performance goals assigned by the Organization are temporary but the work you do, the knowledge you gain, the experience you achieve, the dent you make on the universe are immortal and so set them as the target and not merely the yearly KRA.

Here's the link to download the Tracker…

To make a local copy of the tracker for yourself,

1. please click on the download link. The file will open in Google Docs.

2. Now click on the File option and

3. click on Download.

The KRA Tracker will be downloaded and saved on your system. That’s it open it using any application that supports spreadsheet and you are all set to rock… 

Have I faired well in achieving my KRA for this post? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

del.icio.us Tags: self help,appraisal,bell curve,normal distribution,employee Loyalty