Staff Appraisal: the big middle rank of “Good”
The first time I ventured into line management for HM Customs and Excise (as was), my outgoing manager made me a gift of a 1973 civil service textbook on staff reporting. As I’d always been the schoolboy, creeping like snail to appraisals, he obviously thought I needed the help. Even though HMCE (and later HMRC) had training materials, I don’t think any of it rivalled the clarity and unsentimentality of the 1973 booklet.
Published by the Personnel Management (Training) Division of the Civil Service Department, it was an attempt to standardise Staff Reporting throughout the Civil Service. 750 draft copies were tested at all grades and departments before the programmed textbook was issued. While self-instruction was a new concept viewed with suspicion in comparison to formal learning, given time and staff hours the booklet judged the best way to roll the system out to over 150,000 reporting officers.
The booklet sets out the general principles that staff reporting allows the organisation to make , “the best possible use of its human resources,” and also ensure staff qualities “are properly and justly evaluated so that...they will have a reasonable chance of moving to better work and of securing promotion.”
What I found very interesting was that in 1973 there were six box-markings. Outstanding, Very Good, Good, Fair, Not Quite Adequate and Unsatisfactory. By the time I first moved into management, the box markings had been compressed to three (Top, Good and Must Improve) and this made it harder to report on those in the middle. In 1973, Good meant their “work is generally effective….shortcomings are offset by good performance in other directions.” Fair meant performing “moderately well…without serious shortcomings.” It could be either someone in need of training or guidance or someone who appeared to, “have reached the end of the road as far as a particular job is concerned (and) settles for a level of performance which is just good enough to keep him out of trouble.” While managers could transfer these people to other work or help them re-shape their work to make it more interesting and effective, “this level of performance is as much as (a manager) can expect from one or two members of staff who have reached the limit of their potential.”
Of course, that last sentence would not be acceptable today when there is an expectation in HMRC (as is) that everyone can and will be developed. But as a new HMCE line manager (and many years later in HMRC) I took some comfort from it. All of my staff had been doing the job for years and knew more about the technicalities than me. There were some who would go an extra mile, research a new issue, look beneath the surface. And others who just turned up and stayed out of trouble. But with just one compressed “Good” box mark, there was no way to distinguish, other than the limp, “You’re at the top end of Good.” And even for those who did have a technical aptitude, or curiosity or work ethic, there was no further for them to go. Because the next grade up would mean line management, and only a fool would opt for that.
You might also argue that even someone who turns up and stays out of trouble is playing their part. In a processing unit, a lot of the jobs, a lot of the questions and a lot of the problems are the same. You just need someone to turn up and deal with them (that definitely seems to be the current thinking in HMRC now that processes are automated, and call-handlers working off branching guidance).
Of course, not every question is new, and not every old problem is common enough to work its way into the collective consciousness (or branching guidance). And that’s when you need the people at the top end of good. As long as they’ve not been promoted (or made redundant). The big question is how you keep them motivated, when they are paid the same and treated the same as someone who does the minimum. Sometimes there are “projects” and “learning” as part of their “development” but the staff eventually catch on that at the end of their project the conclusions are shelved (the aim of the project is to develop the staff on the project, not to effect any change on the organisation) and they rarely get a chance to put their “learning” into practice.
Looking back at the 1973 manual, it distinguishes immediate “promotability” from “potential (the capacity to develop further)”. While it is the job of the manager to develop potential, it warns that, “the over riding aim is to get the work done. It is at all times necessary to balance what may be desirable for the development of the individual with the need to get duties carried out effectively.”
What got me looking at the old Civil Service manual was the recent publicity about BBC local radio “Hunger Games” with presenters competing for their own jobs. It reminded me of the HMRC Hunger Games of a few years back where managers had to place their staff on a big game board and then argue the relative merits of their staff and which ones should get pushed over from “Good” to “Less Effective”. In theory a procedure to improve objectivity and consistency, in practice a meat market, the procedure was eventually shelved * but left a lot of scars. It reminds me that while a lot of work can be done for thoughtful and productive people management, it can all be undone with enough malice and self-interest.
*I believe it was Jon Thompson who stopped the practice (he said, his memory failing)
