Until evaluations can be consistent, it will be very difficult to tie Performance Management with Strategic Planning.

As in my example, my company has guidlines on how the evaluations are to be done, but there is not a consistent understanding of what is meant by terms such as "expectations". Even though HR has said it applies to a position "as a whole", ie. is the employee doing the basic job he was hired to do. The problem is, in my case, my boss specifically doesn't like this kind of thinking, and feels that employees should be rated against what he feels their capabilities are. So, if I kick **** one year, I've just raised the bar for myself. Anyway, the point being, that if my boss is saying I'm average even though I was the best at something because he doesn't agree with the way its supposed to be done, then how accurate can the data be? For strategic planning purposes the planners think I'm average and this will be factored into their planning. Now, if we add another 20 or so managers into the mix, each with their own ideas, maybe rating their employees with high scores to hopefully avoid layoffs....well you get the point.

To get a good balanced scorecard, there needs to be more than just "my opinion". For example: Each employee should be assumed to be a 3 or 'average" for whatever catagories there are. Now, you review each employee quarterly, and if the employee accomplished something noteworthy, you make a note of it for the appropriate catagory and give the employee a higher score, say a 4. For several of these, or a really significant accomplishment, award a 5. It also works the other way, if the employee needs to show improvement in an area and had previously been counselled and is still nto making progress, or the employee really screwed up, or whatever, give them a 2 in the appropriate area. The, at the end of the year, pull all of these things together, and award an appropriate score in each catagory. The end result is that each score is based on the employee actually doing something (or failing to do something) that was worthy of recognition and each score is fully justified with an explanation. Now the numbers aren't some abstract "guess" and now you can have your balanced scorecard.

By the way, if the evaluation isn't tied into some type of reward, then why bother? In our case, all raises & bonuses are across the board for everyone, and the yearly review just gets filed "for informational purposes".

Just some thoughts....

The SQL guy.