What is a bigger problem: Managing Performance appraisals or writing accurate appraisals?

When organizing a software training workshop for a major Electric Power Distribution Corporation in New Delhi, I asked Vikram Singh, one of the participating Senior Managers, who has a team size of 150 employees for performance review, “What is the bigger problem when conducting Performance appraisals: managing appraisals or writing accurate appraisals?“.

Vikram’s company employs 2,500 people and use the EmpXtrack Performance Management System. Before switching to our web-based performance management system, they used paper based appraisal forms.

Vikram’s reply to my question was, “I have a 150 member team to review, so personally I find managing Performance appraisals a bigger challenge. I have been managing teams for almost a decade so writing accurate appraisal is not as difficult. It may be difficult for younger managers but not for experienced ones,” He continued “For senior managers like me who also have to review the appraisal of my juniors’ teams (I have 8 juniors managing teams of 15-20 members each), managing appraisals is a far bigger problem. There is already a long list of urgent tasks that I handle and managing 150 Performance appraisals, on top of that makes me sweat.”

I then enquired what he liked most about EmpXtrack’s Performance appraisal software. To that, Vikram replied, Apart from usability, I find the E-mail reminders particularly cool. Each email has a link to open employee’s appraisal directly. Fill it and forget it!”, Vikram chuckled and happily show me his email box and explained how setting filters made his work so easy.

It made me realize how important E-mail reminders functions was for senior managers especially those who have a long list as reviewers. And using filters on reminders makes it quite convenient to handle appraisals of even large teams. I am going to include it in my trainings.

Vikram’s company employs 2,500 people and use the EmpXtrack Performance Management System. Before switching to our web-based performance management system, they used paper based appraisal forms.