Introducing a new Appraisal and Performance Management scheme
The Client
A small investment bank.
The Aims
The mission was to revise the existing scheme to align it with corporate aims and staff development objectives. In addition it was vital to ensure that managers and staff of the UK operation were familiar with the new documentation and could participate fully in the new Performance Management Scheme.
Issues
The original appraisal scheme was business objective driven and was indirectly linked to reward. The new scheme placed a greater emphasis on personal and professional development. It was anticipated that managers and staff would need to develop different attitudes to the process.
At the same time senior management recognised that manager’s skills in coaching, appraisal and feedback were inconsistent.
The Solution
Working closely with mangers and the Human Resources department we developed a project to launch the scheme that fell into three phases.
Phase one involved an assessment of the organisation’s needs from the scheme including a benchmarking process against similar operations. Through this process key areas for performance management and competencies were identified.
During phase two we devised pilot documentation that was tested on key staff members. After these trials the final documentation was designed and received management sign off.
In phase three all staff attended short Performance Management workshops to learn how the new scheme worked and work out how to benefit from it. At the same time all appraising managers attended workshops to enhance skills in appraisal, giving feedback and agreeing development aims.
Feedback Evaluation
All workshops received excellent feedback. In order to evaluate the scheme itself a brief staff survey was conducted.
Follow up
A series of short workshops were organised 6 months after the programme launch. As a consequence of the workshops the scheme and procedures were further refined.
