BEC历年阅读真题详解(8)
1 Genuine feedback would release resources to be usedelsewhere.
2 Managers are expected to enable their staff to workeffectively.
3 Experts are unlikely to facilitate a move to genuinefeedback.
4 There are benefits when methods of evaluatingperformance have been negotiated.
5 Appraisals tend to focus on the nature of the face-to-face relationship between employeesand their line managers.
6 The idea that employees are responsible for what they do seems reasonable.
7 Despite experts’ assertion, management structures prevent genuine feedback
8 An increasing amount of effort is being dedicated to the appraisal process.
A
Performance appraisal is on the up and up. It used to represent the one time of year whengetting on with the work was put on hold while enormous quantities of management hours werespent in the earnest ritual of rating and ranking performance. Now the practice is even morefrequent. This of course makes it all the more important how appraisal is conducted. Humanresources professionals claim that managers should strive for objectivity and thus for feedbackrather than judgement. But the simple fact of the matter is that the nature of hierarchy distortsthe concept of feedback because performance measure are conceived hierarchically.Unfortunately, all too many workers suffer from the injustices that this generates.
B
The notion behind performance appraisal- that workers should be held accountable for theirperformance-is plausible. However, the evidence suggests that the premise is wrong. Contrary toassumptions appraisal is not an effective means of performance improvement- it is judgementimposed rather than feedback, a judgement imposed by the hierarchy. Useful feedback , on theother hand, would be information that told both the manager and worker how well the worksystem functioned, and suggested ways to make it better.
C
Within the production system at the car manufacturer Toyota, there is nothing that isrecognizable as performance appraisal. Every operation in the system has an associated measure.The measure has been worked out between the operators and their manager. In every case, themeasure is related to the purpose of the work. That measure is the basis of feedback to themanager and worker alike. Toyota’s basic idea is expressed in the axiom “bad news first” . Bothmanagers and workers are psychologically safe in the knowledge that it is the system- not theworker –that is the primary influence on performance. It is management’s responsibility to ensurethat the workers operate in a system that facilitates their performance.
D
In many companies , performance appraisal springs from misguided as assumptions. To judgeachievement, managers use date about each worker’s activity, not an evaluation of the process orsystem’s achievement of purpose. The result is that performance appraisal involves managers’judgement overruling their staff’s, ignoring the true influences on performance. Thus the appraisalexperience becomes a question of pleasing the boss, particularly in meetings, which ispsychologically unsafe and socially driven, determining who is “in” and who is “ out”.
E
When judgement is replaced by feedback in the true sense, organizations will have a lot moretime to devote to their customers and their business. No time will be wasted in appraisal . Thisrequires a fundamental shift in the way we think about the organization of performance appraisals,which almost certainly will not be forthcoming from the human resources profession.
