Managing Appraisals, Salary Hike, Promotion -- Tough time for Managers

Currently I am a program manager in NXP semiconductors India Pvt ltd in Bangalore India. Before NXP I have worked in 2 other MNCs and had been managing the appraisals for last 8 years in my complete 15 years of my Software Industries experience as various position in technical management. Being at the driver seat I have faced different type of complex issues which had been the aftermath of appraisal cycles. Since in India mostly appraisal cycle ends by March therefore again this year I had gone through the pain in last 2 months.











The biggest challenge in managing the appraisal is managing the perception of the reportees, and their reportees.

Two Issues I have faced are as follows:-

1. I was expecting of promotion but not considered -- Had been biased towards other team members.

How did I deal with:--

a) Keep the corporate guidelines for promotions and be thorough about the the same and talk very obectively.

b) Candidates should start performing the next position task before I consider for promotions and this should have been stated in the meeting quite frequently in the team meetings.

c) Have job discription for each positions.

d) Don't compare the individual colleagues with the employee -- You are going into trouble because you know the deliverables what comes from individuals and of what quality not the other employee.

e) Listen to the individuals concerns first very calmly. This will resolve 75% of the disputes. Do proactive listening but donot give impression to the candidates that you are agreeing while listening.

f) I keep aside any personal issues or habits away during the appraisal discussion.

g) Plan for the worst case scenarios. Worst case you might loose the candiate. Make sure that not more than 10% employee leaves after the appraisal and that should be the bottom performer.





2.) I did not get a good salary hike while other company had given a good hikes.

How did I deal with:--

a.) In the knowledge based industries like SW/HW etc. no one can afford to have the resources while underpaying them compared to market rate. This is the most demotivating factor for the employee. Non interesting work could be another demotivating factor but most the time you can work upon the work to make it interesting but you can not deal with salary issues on day to day basis.


b.) Get briefed from HR that how your peer industries with similar job profiles are paying. Do not disclose the average salary hike. This is the common mistake most of the managers do. If you disclose this you are going to invite issues not only from the resources whom you did not give the good hike but also from the team members who performed well but because of other reasons you could manage to give only average salary hike this time. There are chances that the candidate is recruited 6 to 9 months back and company had to pay reasonable amount of salary hike to get him on board and you can not give him a good hike.


c.) Do not ask what their expectataion are in salary hike. You are going to get bouncers... and you can not play that ball. Instead talked about that from the budget this is what best you could do for him You looked at his overall performance not only this year but consistently, business situation, market conditions future work, his position you tried your best to match his salary.


d.) There is no U turn once you have fixed the salary but make sure that as a manager this is one of the most critical task you handle there should not be any chance for mistake and be confident when you talk to the employee.


e.) Such discussion should always be in the discussion room. Brief your boss in advance in case you see any escalation in advance so that he is aware of.


f.) If the team members are not reporting to you directly (second layer team members) and they are reporting to your reportee, never try to distribute and justify the hike by yourself. Most of the managers do this mistake. You can distribute the salary hike to the team members who are not reporting to you directly but allow discussion with the direct reportee and managers only. There are lots of advantage doing this way.


g) Even you feel that some one might quit the organisation because of either way (from individual initiated or management initiated) , donot be unfair in rewarding during the salary hike. If you do so definitely resource will quit the company and in future the candidate will never look upon you for any employment. While doing otherway manager is going to harm a lot to the organisation. I have seen when one employee is getting transferred to other unit previous manager give less rating less salary hike so that from these budget they can make other team members more happy but you know the repurcussion for long time. Just to show favouritism you do so to fit the bell curve or giving extra hike to some favourite guy will be harmfull to the organisation.


h.) Keep two things in mind, you need a balance team, you need the people who need to steer the cart and you need the people who need to push the cart to reach to the goal.


i.)Personal relationship and bonding to the employee can avoid lots of these two issues. Personal relationship building is continuous process.

HR role is very very improtant during the appraisal process. Their job doesnot end at the guideline level and spliting the salary hike into various factors and getting the bill signed. They should be supervising and overseeing the whole process.

Many time because of these two factors you see lots of attrition which are aftermath of the appraisal cycle. I will write about the same in my next blog how can we manage the attrition from the development manager point of view and not from the HR point of view.

You can write me at sitesh.mishra@gmail.com in case you want to discuss any issue you are facing. I will be happy to share my experience. Remember "To deliver a good quality project, you need to have best team with you and as a manager you need to work for the team first then the team will work for you and deliver the best result".