I am developing a training workshop for Appraisee's and I am looking for some inspiration. If an employee feels there is a conflict of opinions during their appraisal or they are not happy with the appraisal scores they have been given, how would you advise is the best way for them to address it with their Team Leader?
Also, if anyone has developed and delivered something similar, I would be interested to know what you included.
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Replies
Hi Amy,
We have recently developed a new Performance Review and Development scheme - basically the appraisal process. We delivered a training programme to line managers, prior to them being carried out. Below are some of the things we included in the training:
Receiving Feedback:
Joe joined the Company and your team 6 months ago as a graduate with 2 years industry experience. Although there have not been any significant problems you feel he has not progressed and settled into the role as quickly as he should have, and after 6 months he should be a fully competent member of the team. He asks people in the team for help on things which should be standard practice to him now and seems to choose only the basic tasks, leaving the more complex ones for other people to pick up. The work in the department is fast paced and during the recruitment process you selected him on the basis that he demonstrated he was proactive and eager to develop and progress in his career. You have not raised any of these concerns previously with Joe.
You have arranged to meet with Joe to give him feedback on his performance so far and to agree actions to move forward.
2.
You joined the Company 6 months ago having graduated with a first class honours degree and spent 2 years progressing with a well-known competitor before moving to British Glass. You joined the Company as you were excited by the opportunity to broaden your skills and develop within a fast paced environment. When you first started you spent a week being trained by other members of the team in the basic department processes. Since then you have constantly asked people to explain the more complex tasks to you but nobody seems to have the time and you feel that when you ask they appear frustrated and just do the job themselves. You have tried to raise this with your manager and have requested a couple of meetings with them but they never have time to fit you in, or something else more important comes up. You are frustrated that your experience and skills are not being utilised and you are not developing. This is not the impression of the job you were given during the recruitment process.
Your manager has now asked to meet with you to discuss your performance during the past 6 months.
3.
Julie has worked for the Company for 15 years and has been a member of your team for 5 years. The Company has gone through significant growth and change in the past couple of years which, amongst other things, requires all staff to have a strong focus on teamwork and communication to ensure everyone is working together to deliver focused business results.
Julie is a very experienced member of your team and has always been hardworking and proactive. However, she likes to work independently and has never really mixed well with the rest of the team and other parts of the business. This has caused some problems in the past year as work has been duplicated and there has been conflict amongst team members as she does not involve or communicate to anyone what she is doing. You have informally raised this with her on a number of occasions and she eventually agrees with you but then does nothing to change. To ensure she has the opportunity to communicate and work as a team, a couple of months ago you assigned her as Project Manager to a significant company project which is technically well within her capability and utilises her Project Management qualification and skills. However, little progress has been made and the project is now 5 weeks behind schedule.
You have arranged to meet with Julie to give her feedback on her performance and to agree actions to move forward.
4.
You have worked for the Company for 15 years and have been in your current team for 5 years. The Company has gone through significant growth and change in the past couple of years which, amongst other things, requires all staff to have a strong focus on teamwork and communication to ensure everyone is working together to deliver focused business results.
You are a very experienced member of the team and have always been hardworking and proactive. You have always enjoyed working independently and you believe in coming to work to work hard and aren’t interested in mixing and socialising with colleagues or getting involved in the ‘office politics’. Although you know you are now expected to work better with your team and communicate more, that’s not what you like to do and haven’t done it for the past 15 years. Your manager has discussed this with you a few times but you’ve not changed and you know he lets you get away with it.
A couple of months ago you were assigned as a Project Manager to a company project which is technically well within your capability and utilises your Project Management qualification and skills. You think the project is a waste of time and the Company shouldn’t be doing it. After the first couple of meetings the project team members haven’t shown much interest and no one else has asked about it so you haven’t bothered making much progress with it.
Your manager has arranged to meet with you to discuss your performance over the past few months.
I hope this is of use to you.
Debbie Firth
I'm not sure about any formal training Amy but I've done a little research in to managing conflict as regardless of the reason why there is conflict the principles of how this is dealt with should be similar. These articles may give you some food for thought or content if you go down the formal design / session route.
Managing Conflict - Tips for a more engaged work force
Research paper from ACAS on workplace conflict
Difficult conversations : 9 common mistakes
Hi Amy,
When I mediated conflicts arising from appraisals (these were quarterly), I had encouraged the person to get their evidence 'straightened out' and 'strengthened' as far as where they and their team leader differed - and to do this as quickly as possible. Sometimes, they had needed a bit of help to organise their facts and evidence. On occasion, it had been obvious that the expectations had not been so clear to them from the beginning, or that the team leader had a different interpretation to those objectives...sometimes it was even a case of some goal post shifting...in which cases, I had also approached the team leader to address the 'inconsistencies' and recommend a 'top-up' meeting to review the particular areas of difference.
From an organisational perspective, I also did consistency checks with team leaders - just to moderate any potential extremes with team leaders themselves and to ensure that employees were not being easily given high ratings while others were at the receiving end of poorer ratings. Basically playing the employee's advocate as well as the team leader's advocate - but ensuring that employees had the right level of motivation and engagement to get on with their work/career.
Sometimes a few of these cases had gone down the grievance procedure route, but there were some which got overturned after they'd reviewed the whole appraisal with supporting evidence/feedback.
Hope this helps.
Katherine