Thursday 22 January 2015

Is Meeting Expectations Bad?

I am sure everyone who has been working in IT know that Meeting expectations is Bad. Is that the case? In normal circumstances HR will say meeting expectations is not bad but when it comes to issuing pink slips (as in the case with the recent issue with the large IT organization) this is communicated as bad performance by the same HR. I am not blaming them for the fiasco. So are the employees always expected to exceed expectations? 

Many organizations have a 4 grade system. There are cases where organizations have 5 grades or in some cases a 10 point scale. All these only causes more confusion and ambiguity. 

What is the solution to this? A change of nomenclature for rating to me is fine. You just have three rations - Exceeds Expectaions, Meets Expectations and Doesn't meet expectations. This way we can get rid of the ambiguity in the system. 

Exceeds expectations should be the people who did exceptionally well should be the top 10-20%. Meets expectations should be the majority of the populations - 75-85%. Doesn't meet expectations should be the bottom 5%. 

The bottom 5% should be put through the performance improvement program and set clear expectations on what they need to improve. In case the employee doesn't improve post that period also he/she can be let go. 

This is purely in the case of performance issues. However, that doesn't seem to be the only criteria with the recent case in the largest IT organization in India, where employees are let go because they were not utilized for sometime. 

Every mistake gives opportunity to learn. Every organization should also learn from each others mistakes. The current issue gives an excellent opportunity for everyone to re-look at their performance appraisal systems. 

Meeting expectations should not be considered bad. This is what the majority of the employees be rated as. 

2 comments:

  1. The appraisal process is transparent in govt. institutions. It is not transparent in any private institutions. This is because a mid level manager or a higher level manager can influence promotions hike in private institutions. Whereas govt offices relies on Exams and years on experience and nothing else.

    Less pay less confusion. More pay more confusion :)

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  2. In many companies they have Certification completion as mandatory criteria for promotion. This is part of the role based organization. So that is also there in private companies

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