…To Ensure That Your Workforce Have The Skills?
I was recently asked to give a presentation on the following topic;
“Appraisals – still necessary or no longer needed, and if the latter how do you replace the role they traditionally play?”
It’s a question that has been around for a while, indeed I first wrote about this on LinkedIn in 2015.
My current thoughts, and therefore the basis of my presentation, are as follows:
Forgive me, but this is the wrong question.
An organisation needs a workforce that is competent and confident enough to do a good job, executed well. The question is how does an organisation achieve this? And to answer that, there are a number of other questions to ask.
What are the right questions?
- What does great management look like in this organisation?
- How competent and confident are the current managers, at all levels, at delivering great management?
- What would let the “boss” know that they are?
- How do the employees know what a good job looks like and how do we measure how effective they are at delivering it?
It seems to me that:
- staff need to know what is expected of them and to what standard
- they need regular feedback and opportunities to discuss what is impacting on their role
- this regular feedback and discussion needs to be of good quality, good enough that both parties value it
- and this starts at the top – what objectives do the senior team have for leading, developing and motivating their team? And how good are they at doing that?
For instance, how good are your managers at nurturing creativity in their teams? You can read more about my views on that here. See also what the World Economic Forum saw as the skills demand over the next few years on page 12 or their The Future of Jobs Report 2018.
Does an annual appraisal deliver this?
On its own? No; appraisal as an annual event in isolation will not deliver this but continuous, quality, two-way discussion will, as long as managers have the skills.
And it may well feed into an annual process of reflection.