Appraisal for dummies

I looked at the meaning of "appraisal" at dictionary.com (does anyone use a paper dictionary these days?) and one of the meanings that came up was "the classification of someone or something with respect to its worth". I just came up with something more descriptive – "appraisal is the art or act of assigning letters or numbers in a normalized manner to employees based on the acts of the past one year and the end result is that some employees find themselves too good to stay in the company and some others find themselves too bad to stay in the company leaving only the normal people in the company". Whatever it is, appraisal is the topic of the day. Whether it is a discussion in a meeting room borrowed from someone else who did the booking and forgot about it or the low decibel chat in the coffee corner ("Do you know that guy was given a good appraisal because he lends a cigarette to the manager everyday?") – it's appraisal all the way. Whatever be the CMM level or ISO level or attrition level of a company, appraisal follows some basic steps. These steps, more famously called as the "Santo's Steps to the Letter”, are described below –

1. Appraise yourself
This is where you look back at whatever you did in the last one year and list down all your achievements. It is really helpful if you have the habit of maintaining a diary. How else will you remember your achievements? Also remember that achievements, just like everything else related to an appraisal, are relative. Here are some examples – "I worked really hard to find the name of the new girl who joined my neighboring team" (value – "Learning"), "I always go for lunch with my team mates" (values – "Team Work" and "Consistency"), "I mailed a lot of mails" (value – "Hard work") etc.

2. Meet the manager
After you are done blowing your own whistle, it's time for the manager to blow your whistle. The meeting usually starts with the manager asking you "What are the achievements this year?" with the sole intention of making you feel miserable. The ending statements can be one of the following – "You need a vacation" (high performer), "I think you are not performing to your full potential" (normal performer) and "Do you have anything else to say?" (low performer).

3. Get your number
You must have guessed your number (or letter of the alphabet) from the way the meeting ended (refer step no. 2). But still you might be surprised when you get the actual rating because of the wonderful concept of normalization (some companies are planning to implement Duckworth-Lewis Method also). From then on, your name ceases to exist and everyone in your team will remember you by your number even though it is supposed to be confidential ("hush...hush...he got a 4...")

4. Time for the letter
Finally, you get that wonderful letter for which you have toiled all year - hike letter. One look at the person after he / she receives the letter and you will know whether that person will start updating his resume or not. Sometimes the hike letter is often followed by the employee submitting a letter requesting permission to join another company. Whatever it is, the path to the letter has been traveled and it's peace till the next time the journey has to be undertaken.

Have a great appraisal!!!