Monday 4 December 2006

Upward-focused employee assessments

The people who work for a manager are also qualified to assess that manager from their viewpoint. They should be allowed to do so rather than relying on upper management to make the right assessment and decisions without the input of those in the trenches. An assessment of a manager is a way for the subordinates to make their voice heard at higher levels.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This does not happen at our company.
PPS - It probably does not happen at many, if any.

2 comments:

Erin Marie said...

You know, I was thinking about this when I was working full time. I think it's just as important, if not actually more important, that the people working under a person get the opportunity to assess their manager, because if they're a poor manager, these people are going to be the one that know it.

Of course, it's because I had a supervisor who was particularly bad at managing me, so that probably is why I was thinking about it. When you're the only subordinate of someone, and they appear to have a good relationship with everyone else, it's a very lonely place to be, especially when you've got no forum to talk about it.

John said...

That's exactly my point. There are always two elements to a middle-manager's performance: personal and team. Their own manager may be able to assess them as an individual worker, but when it comes to their performance as a manager, the best qualified appraisers are the subordinates. Otherwise where is the data coming from?