PERFORMANCE APRAISAL AT KOHINOOR TEXTILES The performance evaluation form of Kohinoor Textile Mills consists of various parts.

The form covers a diverse set of aspects regarding performance management and evaluation of the management staff. Critical Analysis Part 1 The first part of this form deals with the professional information and bio data of the appraisee. The section covers the information regarding the educational and professional background of the employee being apprised. It is actually a good starting point as it sets the ground work and gives a reasonably holistic view of the appraisees background and his/her current status in the organization. This specific part contains more information as opposed to the evaluation form of SNGPL that we studied. Part 2 It mainly lists down the current tasks and the job assignments of the appraisee. Part 3 This very part is perhaps the heart of the whole appraisal form and deals with performance measurement. The section is further broken down into two sub-parts which add up to give the overall performance rating as shown in the figure below;

Figure 1: Constituents of Performance Rating The first of these constituents (attributes and managerial behavior) fundamentally deals with the competencies. Most of the fourteen attributes are rather subjective in nature and all carry equal weightings. These are rated on a five point scale with each rating point assigned a particular score. For example, a rating of C means a score of 6. In our opinion, out these fourteen competencies and attributes, only some can be measured in an objective way. These include quantity of work, quality of work, and ISO 9000 to some extent. As the organization under study is a manufacturing concern, measuring the output and the quantity of work is going to be a no big deal. For a manger in the marketing department, the output can be judged by the number of customers secured and the number of orders etc. The quality of work can also be measured objectively in a textile manufacturing unit by the use of certain metrics such as number of faults, number of rejections, and rework etc of the staff under the manager being appraised. AS far as ISO 9000 is concerned, it mainly deals with the standards of quality management systems and these standards are pretty well defined and hence the compliance with these standards can be tracked without much ambiguity.

But the remaining components of the section A of this part are rather broad and subjective in nature e.g. responsibility, leadership, initiative etc. But these dimensions are also necessary for a person at the managerial level. These attributes are a good source to have an overall complete picture of the skill level and competencies of an employee or a manager. Another important feature of this part is that the appraiser has to write down the reasons for an exceptional (A) and Poor (E) rating. This, in our opinion, can be beneficial for the apprisee as it will explicitly highlight the reasons for his/her downfall in case of an E rating point. But the flip side is that doing so would make the job of the appraiser more tedious as he/she will have to write down the specific reasons. Hence, the appraiser may hesitate giving an A or E rating because of these additional requirements. Recommendations: Adding some guidelines and some sort of explanation for each of these attribute will streamline the criteria and make the job of the appraiser more organized. It will also help the appraiser in better explanation of the assigned rating to the appraisee. In addition, some of the attributes such as leadership, initiative, and planning capabilities may not be as relevant for an assembly line worker as they would be for a supervisor and the higher level managers. So this form is rightly being used to evaluate the management staff but it should not used for the evaluation of the workers at the lower level of hierarchy.

Part 5 While the emphasis of part 3 seemed be to on evaluation of performance, this part deals with the developmental side of things. In the light of his assessment of the apprisee, the appraiser here suggests some training and education programmes for the appraisee. But these measures are suggested by only the appriser who is most likely to be a functional manager. There

does not seem to be much involvement from the HR department at this stage. Recommendations: Although HRD department does follow up in the latter stages (at the end of the form), still we believe that some assistance should be provided to the appraiser by the human resource development department. Doing so will mean that the appriser, while suggesting the training programmes, would have a better idea of the nature and types of training programmes that HRD can provide and deliver. Part 6 This part is concerned with the feedback of past performance plus the establishment of performance goals for the next period. One good thing about the discussion of the performance is that broad guidelines have been written down for the facilitation of the appraiser so that he/she can give the feedback in an organized and sequential way. The process starts on a positive note by the appreciation and acknowledgement of the appraisees qualifications and achievements. Then during the middle stages, the apraisee is told about his/her shortcomings and imperfections. The process also ends on a pleasant note by inducing the desire of improvement and setting of the future goals. A collaborative approach as opposed to a top-down one is adopted in setting the future goals. The goals are set together by the manager and his/her supervisor which can serve really well when it comes to gaining and enhancing the commitment of the employee. When the employee himself is involved in setting his performance goals, he will exhibit a much higher sense of ownership in achieving the mutually agreed performance targets. It is quite contrary to the scenario where goals are set by the top management and the employees have no involvement in this process (as was in the case of SNGPL).

Another noteworthy aspect of this part is that not only the future goals are written down but the measurement criteria is also agreed upon and specified right at the outset. So it means that there would not be much ambiguity and the appraisee would be quite clear about the dimensions upon which his performance is going to be gauged. Recommendation: But it should be made sure that the atmosphere during the goal setting process is such that the employee feels at ease and there is no imposition of the performance targets by the top management. Part 7 The appraisal is reviewed by the higher management including the department head and the CEO. In its essence it is a good thing to do as it ensures cross checking and reduces the odds that the appraiser would show biasness during the whole process. It also can keep the top management aware of the progression of the management staff. In addition, it can be really motivating for the appraisee in case if he receives encouraging remarks and comments from the higher management. But as the textile sector is quite labor intensive, one wonders whether the top management and the CEO in particular would enough time to go through each and every form. HRD Follow-Up The role of human resource department comes at this stage. In the light of the views of the appraisee, the appraiser, the department head, and the CEO, HRD comes up with its recommended actions. The department of human resource development suggests measures regarding training, counseling, and career progression for the employee. We believe that it is a fine approach because not only the employee is being evaluated but also the emphasis has been put on developing his professional skills and abilities.

Conclusion So overall, this performance evaluation form takes care of both the evaluative and the developmental aspects. Evaluative part is the responsibility of the functional management while the HR department plays its role when it comes to the development of the staff. It is the proper approach in terms of division of responsibilities as the functional managers are in a much better position to keep a track of the performance of the employees and hence do their evaluation. The process can be improved by following the recommendations that we have given above for some of the parts of this evaluation form.