Let us suppose the corridor of a company; two co-workers talk in low voices. Let's look at the following dialogue:
- Juan: - How are you doing for tomorrow's interview, Pablo?
- Pablo: - The truth ?, very stressed; I don't think we can
agree. Not to mention finding the recognition I hope…
Ah !; There is also your interview. How does the topic find you?
- Juan: - The truth… very stressed; Like you…
Conversations like that, around the interview that is part of the "Performance Evaluation" process are common. They are not the most stimulating within an organization, but it must be admitted that they whitewash the organizational climate. We know that fear - which does not respect hierarchies - goes against good performance and bonding harmony.
If aligning staff performance with company objectives is not an easy task, even less is having a tool that tells us to what extent performance coincides or differs with those objectives.
Some formats such as the so-called "Performance Evaluation" are implemented by some companies to achieve measurements that - supposedly - would provide them with information about the way in which staff performance approaches or departs from their organizational goals.
Such information allows not only to make decisions about promotions, increase rates, separations, etc; It also gives rise to the investigation of procedures that help to achieve that individual or group performance progresses until the alignment of individual interests with corporate ones.
Unfortunately, like any organizational methodology, it can be fortunate enough to become a mere administrative procedure and to make matters worse, a hotbed of conflict, fear, anger, resentment, and traumatic situations.
The performance evaluation interview by formally producing a before and after; it becomes (unfailingly) both for the one who receives it, and for the one who gives it, in a borderline conversation, since promotions and new remunerations are played out among other things (as said before).
It is really an organizational conversation where the communication mismatch lights up its fire more than ever and an interview can lead to a noisy or silent battle. Under these premises, from potential conflict to unleashed there is only one step.
If the person who receives your evaluation hears something that does not coincide with your promotion plans, the conversation will become serious and the concomitant emotions will play a trick on you: inevitably, "I am not recognized in my tasks or in my person" appears.
If the one who gives the evaluation communicates according to their subjectivities (preferences, sympathies or antagonism), it contributes to the conversation going from stormy to sterile.
The battles breathe into the organizational sphere its good dose of contamination. The virus acts on both sides and then radiates throughout the organization, without antidotes.
The theme to reflect on in relation to this tool is how the famous spreadsheets and interviews can fulfill the function for which they were designed, without becoming the instrument of the devil.
To begin the reflection it is important to agree on the following:
Although the design of the tool is important and its preparation must have a business strategy, the decisive factor in its administration is the way it is applied and the conception of the company's leadership policy.
When the tool turns out to be the formal aspect of the accompaniment that a superior does with his collaborators - where an authentic leadership is sealed, capable of coinciding with his managerial function - it will not be a surprise to anyone, the result of its application. It will only be a process of the previous process.
As always, the tools and methods are effective when thought and applied with emotional intelligence; one that considers human resources to be the true capital of a company. An organization is ultimately a "link of humanities". It is better to keep the issue in mind, taking measures that evaporate personal and organizational conflicts in time.
