Mother in Law: Appraising appraisals – no surprises, please

I can’t believe I haven’t written about this subject before. In fact, I had to go through seven years’ worth of articles to check, because it seems so obvious and I have so much to say. Appraisals. 

There seems to be a trend of not calling them appraisals, which I don’t really understand because it is accurate and not particularly negative. In my experience, all this has led to different firms using different abbreviations for the same thing, which they don’t realise is only a ‘thing’ within their own firm. I spent a particularly tricky first week not understanding why so many people were ‘doing their CPR’ which, it turned out, was a Continuing Professional Review and nothing to do with either litigation or first aid.  

My early experience of appraisals was very poor. I worked in a relatively small firm whose partners, I think, suddenly realised they hadn’t done any appraisals in a number of years, and needed to start pulling one particular fee-earner into line. So we all had to have appraisals. 

The result was, quite frankly, chaos. Certain members of the accounts team (it’s always the accounts team, right?) were so outraged that they had to take part in the process that they threatened to quit. And that was nothing compared to the moment we were all issued with our ‘results’. Which brings me on to my first learning point: I don’t think issuing people with any kind of numeric result, as a result of any kind of box-ticking, works. I certainly do not think such a result should result in pay rises or bonuses. 

Pay rises and bonuses should be based on financial performance for fee-earners. An appraisal should be a holistic review of the year, and result in a set of aims for the following year. I can never remember what SMART stands for (in the context of targets), but I know the R stands for ‘relevant’, and five, 10, or even 20, tick-boxes are never going to be relevant to everyone in the firm. Just speak in sentences to each other and make a note of what is said.

My experience of appraisals did get better, and by being appraised well, I was able to get better at appraising others. The best appraisals I have had have essentially been opportunities to talk about myself and my career in an unhurried way, because I know this hour is for me. I don’t have to feel that I’m being self-indulgent or that I’m taking up my line manager’s time. 

Obviously, it is, or should be, a two-way process and one of the harder parts is accepting feedback. I can literally tell you every time a teacher said a stern word to me at school, or gave me a lower mark than I had hoped for, and every client who has ever complained about me. Each one has left a scar on my soul. This is NOT the way to take feedback in an appraisal. You are, I would assume, being appraised by someone who is senior to you and they will have, or should have, valuable things to impart. You don’t know everything, and that’s OK. Take the advice in the spirit it is intended.

However, there should be no surprises for either party in an appraisal. You should not save things up. A good team leader will give you feedback on the hoof as well as in regular one-to-ones. A good employee will communicate problems, challenges and ambitions. Again, I’ve seen it from both sides. A team member absolutely let rip at me, telling me exactly what she thought of the firm, during her appraisal. It took a lot to patiently let her have her say, gently challenge her on some of it, and bring it all round to a positive conclusion in the time available. A friend of mine didn’t realise there was a problem with their performance until their appraisal, and apparently at this point it was a big problem. That’s not fair either.  

Usually, the meeting will be much more important to the appraisee than the appraiser. They may be worried about it, excited by it and/or, hopefully, prepared for it. As such, unless your child’s leg has fallen off or you are suddenly experiencing symptoms of a highly contagious and potentially fatal disease, please do not cancel or postpone it. 

And finally, you do need those regular one-to-ones to see how the year is going. There is no point setting targets and then both forgetting about them until you look at the form at the beginning of the following year. 

Some facts and identities have been altered in the above article