The summer of elections, IPL and appraisals
It will be di®cult to disagree that one of the best moments of this IPL so far has been those three consecutive sixes by Dhoni against MI at Wankhede. On the other hand, one could argue that such play was expected of Mahi and he was simply delivering.!
Meanwhile, I am struggling to decide if I should vote again for the sitting MP in the Lok Sabha poll, whom we elected based on the promises he made last time. Promise versus delivery has become a subject for sensitive debate at home.
In the midst of this summer of IPL and elections where we are evaluating players and politicians, it’s also appraisal season at enterprises, where employees and employers are evaluating each other on their say-do ratios.
The promises
“In the next cycle, we shall make the correction” is a common hiring managerial assurance when organisations can’t match the new joiner’s pay demand. Once hired, the managers continue to build this salary-correction hope with the new recruit throughout the employment cycle. The employee plays the underpaid card, and the manager dangles the carrot for the next cycle correction. It’s an endless loop where the manager can never get the best of any employee after pay-related broken promises. Picture this: many salary benchmarking consulting rms have projected an 810% average salary hike this year, which further creates a minimal benchmark for most employees. So, a no hike or a lesser raise than average rightfully makes the employees feel betrayed.
Changed context
From the time Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, global enterprises have been on a continual volatile journey. Their ability to grow, maintain prots, hire, give hikes or promote employees has been highly challenged. Moreover, many of them overhired talent at in£ated salaries, and the new recruits haven’t delivered against their enhanced titles and in£ated salaries. Sounds similar to the ongoing struggling performance context of Mitchell Starc and Hardik Pandya, who have yet to substantiate the highestpaid tag in IPL and captaincy? Enterprises like the IPL franchises must be wondering what happened to their new hires’ potential and promises. Should they consider the di®cult circumstances under which employees are supposed to perform while appraising them or weigh on the organisational a©ordability? When the organisations choose the latter, the consequences are not di®cult to predict.
Attrition quarters
In the IT industry, it’s well known a signicant percentage of employees across hierarchies quit between April and September after receivingr hikes. Last year, in spite of a tight hiring market, 46,000 sta© of the top four Indian IT services rms joined other IT services rms or GCCs in the second and third quarters. It’s now an acceptable interview conversation in these April, May, and June quarters for job seekers to say, “I am at ◣ salary, expecting a 10% hike; I need at least 30% above that to switch my job”.
Appraisals seem to have become trading counters for job changes.
Appraisal blues
Organisations and managers operate under this constant threat of resignation during annual appraisals, and an honest conversation on productivity, process improvements, and development is hardly covered. One year, we had a £at performance without any revenue growth. When we analysed the appraisal ratings, all employees’ average rating was a 3 out of 5. Here, three meant meeting expectations of 100% achievement. None of the managers had rated any of their reportees 1 or 2 despite achieving 50 % or less. They were playing it safe. Some even praised hard work and commitment and ignored the performance metrics while recommending over 20% t hikes.
Flowing river
The burden of more work, loss of IP and the discontinuity of people and processes are producing indecisive managers. IT services companies that shed signicant headcounts last year are still showing increases in employee costs, highlighting the cost increase to replace, upskill, and retain skilled talent.
(The writer is CoFounder of ◣pheno, a specialist sta ng company.)