Implications of the Problem for Existing EPMA Approaches

If the root cause of the problem is that the majority of managers lack the basic ability to explain and discuss their appraisal of an employee's performance in an honest and effective way, then simply providing an avenue for such a discussion to happen within a formal system is obviously not the solution to the problem. The following examples show how the root cause of the problem manifests itself within the most popular approaches to EPMA.

Rating Approaches

Take the example of Sam presented earlier. For the conclusion that "Sam has no leadership ability," his manager (Fred) has to find the closest heading on the form that pertains to the opinion (assuming it appears on the form and/or is good fit) and then, presumably, give it a low rating. If he does this, he knows that he will have to explain what he means by the low rating. This means he has to define what improvement looks like as well as provide help and guidance concerning how the employee could achieve it. In addition, he also has to get the employee to agree to improve, and to accept any salary implications that might result. How can he do this? Answer: he can't, so he avoids it. He ticks the "average" column, perhaps drops a few hints that he hopes the employee will pick up on, and prays that it is the end of the matter.

Even though Sam might receive an "above average" score for some other areas related to how he does the job, the inevitable result is an average appraisal that does not give him any real idea of exactly what he is doing well (i.e. what he should continue doing) and how he needs to improve (i.e. what he should start or, more perhaps more importantly, stop doing). Sam still doesn't know the consequences of his performance and Fred, the organization, and Sam's employees continue to live with the status quo.

Consequently, none of the kinds of technical tweaking aimed at improving ratings approaches, e.g. customizing the categories, standardizing the process, choosing an appropriate scale (five or seven?) and teaching managers how to use the form relates to solving the initial problem. Managers still cannot communicate honest information or talk to the employee any more effectively than they could do before.

Competency-based approaches

These suffer from a somewhat similar problem as that described above for rating scales. A manager who identifies a gap in a given competency, say "communication," still runs up against the same problem. Namely, he or she has to be prepared to explain why the gap has been identified and how the employee can close that gap. The definitions that competency-frameworks provide are supposed to help managers by essentially doing their thinking for them. However, these definitions are still generic. Consequently, they can end up complicating the problem because they are rarely specific enough to be of any real help in getting to the heart of any issue.

Because of the complex nature of human performance, it is rare that any given situation will fit cleanly into a competency-based form. For example, given a standard definition of communication, where would the following kinds of problem communication behaviours fit? "Comes across as a know it all" or, "has a tendency to roll his eyes and look disgusted when he thinks that others' ideas are stupid".

360-degree based approaches

Because of the anonymity of these approaches, there is a lesser chance of avoidance being an issue. However, the opposite situation can be just as problematic. The process allows for an information dump of positive and negative fuzzies without any requirement to justify or explain them in an effective way. For example, if I'm a manager and I think that you are not a good team player, I might write something like, "You could improve the way you work in teams, perhaps become a better team player".

The whole process also assumes that the employee will understand the feedback, agree with it, and in the case of negative fuzzies, know what to do to make the necessary changes. This is rarely the case. For example, if I were the employee in the case above, I still wouldn't necessarily know exactly what "become a better team player" means in my case, or how I could achieve it.

While such an approach may have some benefit when it comes to soliciting feedback from customers (and perhaps peers if they are given some training in how to structure and explain their feedback), it is totally inappropriate for direct managers because they should never give feedback anonymously. It amounts to a cowardly way out when, by virtue of their position over the employee, they have an organizational, moral, and ethical responsibility to talk to him or her face-to-face, explain their feedback, and help the employee figure out how to achieve desired performance. Therefore, this system doesn't solve the initial problem - namely, the inability to explain, justify, and communicate the feedback effectively.

Ranking systems

Ranking systems are simply a quantification of managers' intuitive assessment of an employee's performance and potential. In fact, subjective forms of ranking have always existed because they reflect how managers really think employees are doing. Regardless of whether the implementation of such a system is perceived as being inherently good or bad, once such previously confidential rankings become "official" and public, it is even more necessary for management to defend them. Moreover, it is equally important for employees to understand the assessment that placed them in a given ranking.

Again, the problem does not lie necessarily with the technical elements of how the process works, or even with the managers' ability to honestly identify which category a given employee falls into. While managers can usually explain their reasoning behind for their conclusion in a "safe" environment, the problem still comes back to their inability to choose words that can convey the same information to the actual employee in an appropriate and effective way.

Objectives or KPI-based approaches

When employees are appraised on pre-defined results, a different manifestation of the problem arises. For example:

"I managed a team that was given the task of developing the corporate website. Joan was the graphic designer and she had an objective that related to creating a look for the site that projected the company's image. At the end of the project, it was determined that the team had "exceeded expectations" and all the individuals received the appropriate bonus. Congratulations all round!"

However, the less tangible side of this result that was never talked about (not to Joan, anyway) was:

"On the other hand, I would rather not have Joan work on a project for me again because I don't think that she is a team player. She had a tendency to get very defensive about her work. She did take feedback from other members and made the suggested changes, but she did it grudgingly and took an "I'll do it, but I don't have to agree with it" attitude. I didn't know how to confront her with this at the time, but I know that I don't need the headache of dealing with it again."

You can see how bringing in such feedback could confuse the whole issue of results because there is no real place for it within the process.Yet, the fact of the matter is that this behaviour is a critical part of the overall performance and it is therefore very important feedback. Even if the manager could somehow figure out how to bring the subject up within the context of the positive results, he or she still usually doesn't feel confident in doing so for the reasons already discussed.

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Julie Freeman is a training and development professional with over 15 years of experience in the corporate training environment and in consulting. Her primary area of expertise is in the design, development, and delivery of soft-skills training for managers and supervisors.

Julie has a BA in Psychology with a minor in Human Resources, a Graduate Diploma in Computer-Assisted Learning, and an MA in Educational Technology (the training and development degree).

She now specializes in showing corporations, managers, and supervisors how they can finally achieve the kind of "open and honest" communication with their employees about their performance that works in the way that we have always envisioned that it should.

Julie was born and raised in the UK, but has lived and worked in North America for most of her adult life.

Her website is at www.performancefeedback.com.