In business management, performance appraisal is one of the essential but difficult aspects of business management. It has to be done because performance appraisal is a key link in corporate performance management, and it is also an important form for companies to evaluate employees, reflect on themselves, and identify problems. However, how to effectively conduct performance appraisal and obtain real performance results is also a management problem faced by many companies at the same time.
In family businesses, performance appraisal is even more difficult. The reason lies in the characteristics of family businesses themselves: complex interpersonal relationships; corporate culture that values unity and the lack and immaturity of management systems.
First of all, interpersonal relationships in family businesses are complex.
No matter how far a family business develops, there will always be complex interpersonal relationships within it. Even family-owned private enterprises that have developed to be listed on the public stock market still have the same problem: on the surface, professional managers are in charge, but in fact, behind every professional manager there is a family leader. What's more, the interpersonal relationships in many small and medium-sized private family businesses are even more complicated. Family members may occupy the main management positions, or professional managers and family members may share decentralized management. In short, if there are conflicts of interests, there will inevitably be interpersonal conflicts and contradictions. There are overt and internal struggles.
Second, promote a corporate culture of unity.
Performance appraisal has some elements of comparison and competition, but it is undoubtedly not suitable for an enterprise with a family culture and a culture that values unity. Therefore, the corporate culture concepts and elements that have been solidified and precipitated for a long time since the establishment of the family business have become one of the important obstacles to the implementation of performance appraisal.
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Since the early days of a family business, many unwritten management systems and conventions have been operating within the business for a long time, forming many "hidden rules." However, when a family business develops to a certain stage and extent, the management system and management level are required to keep up with the development requirements of modern enterprises from a standardization perspective. The benchmark platform for performance appraisal is based on a standardized management system. Therefore, the lack of strong institutional guarantees will seriously affect the smooth implementation process of performance appraisal and the application of results.
Precisely because family businesses have the above characteristics, the following phenomena often occur during the performance appraisal process:
First, the assessment process lacks fairness, leading to different pay for equal work and different salaries for the same position phenomenon.
Due to the complexity of interpersonal relationships, employees who implement assessments face more pressure and challenges, so fairness is difficult to guarantee. After all, corporate family members control far more resources than outsiders, so they are more inclined to the corporate family in terms of assessment interests. member. As a result, the phenomenon of different pay for equal work and different pay for the same position has emerged. Due to the unreasonable design of the salary system and unfair performance appraisal, it is easy to cause internal turmoil within the company.
Secondly, the support for the implementation of performance appraisal within family businesses is low.
Because performance appraisal will affect the long-term profit mechanism of managers within the company, and the implementation of the appraisal also puts managers under psychological pressure, so for managers of family businesses, performance appraisal, especially for middle and senior management Performance appraisal is not supported. As for employees, poor communication with employees and lack of widespread recognition and understanding by employees also make performance appraisal work difficult.
However, the lack of clear and fair performance appraisal is likely to result in low employee motivation, lack of motivation, competition and crisis awareness. This is a sign of a company's decline, and it is also a situation that every entrepreneur and responsible manager does not want to see. Therefore, for family businesses, performance appraisal is very necessary. So how to break through bottlenecks and deal with the difficulties in assessment of family businesses? We propose the following points:
one. Winning the strong support of business owners is the greatest guarantee for the success of implementing performance appraisals.
In a family business, the one with the greatest prestige and power is the business owner himself. The decision-making of the business owner is often autocratic. Therefore, it is considered necessary to straighten out the entire idea before implementing performance appraisals and make comparisons based on the actual situation of the enterprise. Complete implementation plan for business owners’ reference. If the business owner himself does not know enough about performance appraisal, as a human resource manager, he should take the initiative to do persuasion work. If after doing a lot of persuasion work, the business owner is not willing to support, then it is better not to conduct performance appraisal. The prerequisite for implementing performance appraisal in a drastic manner is to win the strong support and approval of business owners. At the same time, during the performance appraisal process, business owners should also personally participate in the entire appraisal process, which can greatly enhance the effectiveness of the appraisal and reduce appraisal resistance.
two. Establish the concept of stabilizing the overall situation and ideologically solve the doubts of employees and managers.
The communication work before the implementation of the assessment must be solid and sufficient, including with family members and outside employees of the family business. We can use ideological mobilization, morning meetings and evening meetings, regular department meetings, and internal corporate media communication to convey theoretical knowledge about performance appraisal, as well as specific performance appraisal plans and specific appraisal projects. The purpose is to unify understanding and thinking, deepen the correct understanding of performance appraisal, and prevent major turmoil in the minds of employees within the company.
three. Assessment items and assessment standards should be open and transparent.
Before implementing the assessment, the department supervisor will use the time of regular department meetings to lead the department employees to learn about the specific assessment items and assessment standards, so that employees can be aware of their performance and work goals in future work. At the same time, the assessment process and assessment results must be made public in a timely manner to open communication channels for employees. Those who think it is unfair can appeal to the personnel department to resolve conflicts and dissatisfaction during the assessment.
Four. Those who implement the assessment must be trained on relevant assessment skills.
The specific assessment model is chosen according to the situation of each different family business. In short, the assessor must be the direct supervisor of the person being assessed, so the training of the assessor has become an important task for human resources management workers, because the assessment level and assessment The level of ability directly determines the fairness and authenticity of the assessment.
five. Implement the direct assessment method of business owners for mid- to high-level personnel within the enterprise
In many family businesses, many family members occupy middle- and senior-level positions, so the assessment of these people has become a great challenge for human resource managers. From the perspective of checks and balances and the practice of relatively successful operations in the past, I proposed that all members of the family business who serve as middle- and senior-level employees should be evaluated by the business owner himself, and there must be grades according to the evaluation standards, and there must be specific evaluation scores, all of which must be made public. . On the one hand, the resistance to assessment is reduced to a minimum, and at the same time, it is subject to public supervision. The assessment results must also be made public to reduce the unfairness of employees within other companies. It is important to remember that family members who serve as middle- and senior-level employees are singled out for assessment by business owners.
six. Assessment results should have clear applications.
The so-called clear application refers to the corresponding evaluation behavior for relevant people based on the assessment results, such as salary increase, reward, promotion, transfer, demotion, fine, expulsion and dismissal, etc. At the same time, the results of the application of the assessment results must also be disclosed, and how to implement them specifically shall be implemented according to the performance assessment system.
seven. Performance interviews are essential.
Just like our general operating procedures, after the performance appraisal is completed, performance appraisal interviews will be conducted with different employees based on the appraisal results. On the one hand, employees can understand the reasons and actual situation of their performance results, and at the same time, it is conducive to improving work performance and consciously Improve your own abilities and quality weaknesses, and set goals and action plans for achieving better results in the next stage of assessment.
During the entire implementation process, it is obvious that the strong support of business owners cannot completely guarantee the success of performance appraisal, especially when encountering particularly strong resistance, such as a collective boycott by family members. At this time, managers should use artistic processing techniques. They can start from the following ideas and techniques, which will achieve great results.
First, concentrate superior forces and hit key figures.
There must be a leader behind a collective boycott. If the provocative behavior of the leader can be controlled, such a joint group will quickly break up. The person who controls the leader can ask him to be the leader of the performance appraisal team, so as to take the lead in opposition and support. Although I was a little reluctant at first, but think about it, I mostly play the role of evaluating others. This is also a good role. Over time, The support is getting bigger and bigger. If you are a very tough person and can't do ideological work, you can only kill one policeman and forcefully implement the relevant system.
Secondly, we can take the road of surrounding cities from rural areas.
The so-called rural areas surrounding cities means that ordinary employees are assessed first, and then family members who hold most of the middle and high-level positions are assessed. In this way, the target subjects of the assessment are not targeted at family members first, which greatly reduces resistance, and then allows them to understand that every employee in the company is equal, and the implementation of the system is fair to individuals, so their assessment is also Inevitable, so they have to accept the implementation of the assessment due to pressure to a certain extent.
Finally, strengthen positive incentive assessment and weaken the negative impact of assessment.
Because appraisal is a kind of transfer and giving of pressure to every employee, so they think more of the negative impact of the results after the appraisal. Therefore, when we use the assessment results, especially when the assessment mechanism is still immature, we should focus on positive incentives, minimize the scope and intensity of punishment, vigorously publicize the outstanding personnel in the assessment, and give substantial rewards. and promotion. To a certain extent, it will stimulate positive associations among family members, and at the same time, it will be conducive to the support and advocacy of all employees of the company, create a good corporate atmosphere within the company, and ensure the smooth progress of performance appraisals.