Vicki Anderson

I have been consulting on performance evaluation systems for a long time and one of my pet peeves is the feeling by some managers that you can’t rate people at the top of the scale because there is always room for improvement. My answer to that is, “Then take that rating off the form because it is unachievable.”

I believe in coaching to the test. In other words, be very clear with employees about what you consider good solid performance and what they have to do above or below that to get better or worse ratings. For those people who are high achievers, they now have something to shoot for and if you see it consistently, why can’t you give them that rating?

There is no perfect in human behavior. There is always room for improvement. That doesn’t stop us from wanting a reward when we achieve a certain level. No matter how many Tour de France races Lance Armstrong has won, there is room for improvement. That’s why he keeps trying. They don’t withhold the trophy because of it.

The problem is that most managers haven’t really thought about what they think excellent performance looks like, so they feel uncomfortable rewarding it. If they do give high ratings they are afraid of being unfair to someone else so they want to give high ratings to everyone. And, of course, they are under pressure by their bosses to give few high ratings because then everyone will want a big raise.

I have a philosophical question for you. If it didn’t matter what raise you were going to get because there is not much budget, would you rather your manager give you the higher rating you had worked to earn or would you rather they soft peddle it and give you an average score so it is in line with the money? What does that do to your motivation? At least it would be on the record that you are a high performer when promotions or raises are available again.