Performance Appraisal: Is there an ideal?

Microsoft on the theory of goal setting, assess the staff according to performance ambitious targets, which respond to the acronym SMART (Specific, measurable, achievable, results-based and within a certain period of time). So a programmer can commit to finish within a certain period, 3 modules of a code or reduce the number of errors from 1.000 to 50. All staff are evaluated every six months. These assessments are tied to salary increases, bonuses, promotions and stock options. Such criteria and evaluation form are perfectly in tune with the kind of people that the company recruit (the most ambitious and brilliant of the best universities), and the strategy and organizational culture that seeks, consisting of enhancing competition and the maximum effort in their jobs, in order to achieve and consolidate a position of leadership).

Evaluation systems are in a context that has at one end very subjective criteria and the other very objective criteria. Each system has its own advantages and disadvantages, but there is no ideal system. Effective implementation of the evaluation system itself depends on both the system design and make use of the evaluators. There are several factors of social and psychological influence evaluators make assessments are not always accurate. What's more, the accuracy is not always what you are looking for with the valuations. The evaluation should be more than an exercise that looks at the past and that rewards or punishes the person for their work during the previous year. You should also look to the future, to which the person can do to develop their full potential in the company. This requires that management provide a (suitable) feedback to employees to enable them to improve their performance. A via increasingly used for this is "360-Degree Assessment." Assessment systems are inherently deficient and require to be periodically reviewed and changed.

This is not necessarily bad, since such changes serve to focus attention on performance: What does it mean? What the organization values? How to be achieved? author's website: http://www.galeon.com/ricardocandela/