The annual appraisal always tends to invite some degree of fear in the life of a working professional. Organisations have built in systems for managing the annual review process. Yet – at the ground level an appraisal has no standard process and methodology. The Boss commands the process and the personality of the Boss defines the methodology. Strangely, I had my most constructive appraisal on email. No face-off at all! There have been times when I have had intensive one hour monologues with my Boss that left me with no valuable feedback. After the meeting, I came out clueless, confused, and cold.
Despite all the butterflies and goose-flesh, you can use this as an opportunity to grow your career. This is assessment time not just for the employer but also for you. You can turn the table to some extent with careful research and use this as a platform to grow your career.
Some handy tips that can help you conquer the appraisal fears:
- Quantify your results: Numbers speak louder than any words. So you should be able to state the results achieved in correlation with the objectives set at the beginning of the year. You should be able to substantiate this with data that is self-explanatory and highlights your contribution to the department.
- Benchmark your work against your peers: The grading is normally competitive and you should have that extra spark to get that higher rating from your manager as compared to your peers. List out your achievements along with the appreciation you have received from customers and seniors.
- Conversation should be amicable: When your boss highlights your gaps, you need to be patient and not be argumentative. At the same time, if there are certain aspects that you don’t agree with his opinion, you should be able to put forth your point with data points in a polite manner.
- You can ask for higher responsibilities: This is the time when you should share with your growth plans with your boss. If you need to grow in other skills/domain, they should be outlined by you so that he can include it in his plans also.
- The Boss’s word is final: The hard fact is that the boss’s word is final and the software used for performance assessment has no impact on the grade. So, it is important to have a good cordial relationship with your manager throughout the year.
The annual appraisal is just a formal stamp of the rating that your manager has already framed in his book. As the systems and processes exist worldwide across organisations, the Boss has the pen and you cannot challenge it with words in the schema of organisational governance.
Nishta Gupta is a career coach and the founder of Fixerline.com. She helps professionals plan work life and take meaningful steps towards achieving career goals.
