“Appraisal Forms are filled. But appraisal interview in which the appraiser is expected to discuss the performance with a man is almost never conducted” – Peter Drucker.

Performance counseling is a misunderstood concept. It is wrongly interpreted as a process of correcting or controlling the employee behaviour by giving him negative feedback in an authoritative manner by his controlling officer. On the other hand performance counseling could be described as “the process of providing help by manager to his subordinates in analyzing their performance and other job behaviours in order to increase their overall job effectiveness”. Performance counseling should normally be done in regular course of performance whether they are regular or not. Performance counseling should focus on entire performance (task and behaviour) during a particular period rather than on a specific problem. However, specific problem may be discussed during counseling as a part of analyzing and understanding performance or behaviour patterns. While performance counseling in recommended more frequently depending upon the needs of each employee and availability of time with the manager, it should at least take place once in a year.

Counseling Objectives

A said earlier counseling aims at development and thereby improving overall effectiveness of employee. It involves the following:

• Helping employee to realize his/ her potential
• Helping employee to understand his strengths and weaknesses
• Providing employee an opportunity to know how others perceive his\her performance, behaviour
• Providing employee congenial atmosphere for sharing and discussing his problems, tensions, conflicts, concerns affecting performance.
• Helping employee develop action plans to further improvise his performance, behaviour.
• Helping employee to review in a non-threatening way his progress in achieving various goals objectives set mutually.
• Helping employee to measure and control his performance.

Conditions for Effective Counseling

Counseling could be an effective instrument in helping people integrate with their organisation and have a sense of involvement and satisfaction. The following conditions are necessary for counseling to be effective.

• General Climate of Openness and Mutuality - If the organisation or departments in which the employee working is full of tension and people do not trust each other, counseling cannot be effective. A climate of trust and openness is essential for effective counseling.

• Helping Attitude of Management – Counseling involves helping which is not possible unless the counselor has helping attitude and genuine desire to help employee.

• Participatory Approach – It is necessary that employee feels free to participate without fear or inhibition in the process of performance review and feedback. Remember counseling is not a one way process of communicating to the employee what he should or should not do. Participatory approach will provide an opportunity to manager to know employee’s views and eventually contribute to better understanding among the two.

• Be Focused – When purpose of counseling is to help the employee on improving his performance, counselor manager ought to focus discussion on work related issues and behavior, however, it is natural that other personal issues may figure up during discussion meeting but, there lies the skill of manager to correlate these with the work related issues.

An Outline or Sequence for Effective Counseling

Counseling or evaluation interviews serve two purposes: (i) they serve as a form of feedback, which helps subordinates evaluate their progress and where they stand in the eyes of their boss, and (ii) they provide opportunity for mangers to counsel subordinate on how to improve their performance. However, evaluation interviews are not easy. Poorly handled they may lead to hostility and even greater misunderstanding. To ensure that no essential past of the interview is left out, managers are often encouraged to follo a standardized outline.

For Example:

• The superior tells the subordinate the purpose of the interview that it is designed to help him or her do a better job.

• The superior presents the evaluation, giving the strong points first, then the weak points, and ending on a positive note(this is called “sandwich”, since the meet- the criticism- is surrounded by blander material)

• Next the superior asks for comments. He/ she anticipate that the subordinate may show some hostility to negative evaluations and allow him to the subordinate and does not expose unjustified excuses.

• The superior then encourages the subordinate to give his own version of his progress and problems.

• The interview close with discussion of what the subordinate can do to improve his performance in the future and what the superior can do to help

Some managers start the interview by asking the subordinate. “Tell me, how do you think you are doing?”. Then they show the subordinate the evaluation. This has to advantage of letting the subordinate tell his or her side of the story first, it is often easier for a person to criticize himself then accept criticism from others.

What constitutes counseling?

Counseling is given by one who is senior to the other person- in competence, or in knowledge, or in psychological expertise, or in the hierarchical position in the organisation. It involves three main processes- Communication, Influencing and helping. Communication involves listening, responding and giving feedback. It also involves influencing the one who is being counseled in several ways, so that he moves in desired directions. Enabling other persons to exercise more autonomy, providing positive reinforcement and creating conditions in which the other person is able to learn from the behaviour of counselor are some of the whys of influencing. Helping the other person involves concern and empathy counselor has towards counselee, mutuality of relationships, (Counselee responds as much to the counselor’s needs as the former does to the latter’s) and identifying developmental needs if the counselee so that the other person is able to develop and increase effectiveness.

Reactions to Performance Appraisals

Reactions to performance appraisal are two fold, reaction of the manager who is writing appraisal (appraiser) and reaction of the employee who is being appraised (appraisee)

Reactions of Appraiser Manager

Managers who must complete appraisals of their employees often resist the appraisal process. The manager may feel he or she is “put in the position of playing God”. A major part of a manager’s role is to assist, encourage, couch and counsel subordinates improve their performance. However, being a judge on one hand and a coach and counselor on the other causes internal conflict and confusion for the manager.

The fact that appraisal may affect a employee’s future career may cause raters to alter or bias their rating. This bias is even more likely when managers know that they will have to communicate and defend their ratings to the employees, their bosses, or to personal specialists. From the manager’s view point, providing negative feedback to an employee in an appraisal interview can be easily avoided by making the employees ratings positive.

Reactions such as these are attempts to avoid unpleasantness in an interpersonal situation. In the end, this avoidance (of unpleasant situations) helps no one. A manager must remember that he owes an employee a well considered appraisal.

Reactions of the Appraised Employee

A common reaction to by employee is to view appraising a Zero-Sum game (in which there must be a winner and a loser). Employees may well see the appraisal process as a
threat and feel that the only way to get a higher rating is for some one else to receive a low rating. This win-lose perception is encouraged by comparative methods of rating.