Performance Ratings and Near Misses

I love Aviation lingo. My favorite is the phrase "near miss". It really means that two planes "nearly hit one another". But a "near hit" sounds bad and in the world of feel-good public relations intent on manipulating the psyche of the common person we get- "near miss". Sounds better, feels better but is really the opposite of what has happened.

Now that it is performance review time in my company, I can see how aviation lingo has crept into human resources. We have a phrase too - it's called the Individual Performance Rating (IPR). It identifies how you did vs. your objectives and then translates into your year end bonus.

IPR is the "near miss" phrase in our company since we apportion a fixed bonus amount ("the kitty") to employees based on their IPR. But the average of the IPRs cannot be greater than 100% so supervision "balances" IPRs to 100%. So your performance rating is not individual it is really relative- hence IPR becomes RPR.

But like "near misses" we can't say Relative Performance Rating because that would incite competition among our employees who we expect to work as a team. Now that I am a supervisor I understand this dilemna from both sides.

Now when one of my subordinates say's to me, "How can I move my IPR up a couple of points", I don't tell them the truth which is "Well, let's see who we can move down next year so you can go higher". Instead, I tell them, "You know, you just nearly missed the higher target let's work on increasing your objectives next year so that you can contribute at a higher level." In fact, I say this to all my team members and the process can be repeated every year.

Ooops, I gotta run, nearly missed my performance review meeting with my boss.