The impending doom
Tomorrow is my annual appraisal, and so I am not a happy bunny 
Part of me is hoping it will be postponed again, though the other part of me would be glad to get it over and done with and find out if/when I will be getting a payrise. The word on the street is that the full payrise doesn’t come until September when we sign new contracts, but we have to go up at least £1k in theory because the new graduates starting in September 08 will be on £1k more than the graduates who started in September 07, and we always go up proportionally…
Our annual appraisals are a right pain to fill out – mine took me around four hours. I was hoping to be able to read what my line manager had written about me and think about what I wanted to say before the meeting itself, but when I went to ask him yesterday he said “Erm no, I haven’t started writing my half yet!”
The first part of the appraisal involves ranking yourself between one and five on a set of 14 attributes which you are supposed to possess. You are supposed to get a three, which is denoted “standard for grade/level”. 2 means you have a “moderate development need”, whereas 4 is “strong”. People who get 5′s become partners, and people who get 1′s become unemployed 
The attributes under analysis are motivation, drive, judgement, credibility and communication, resilience, networking, selling, technical, organisation, teamwork, client service, portfolio management, commerciality and intellect. The person who can tell me the difference between drive and motivation gets a prize 
The second part of the appraisal involves assessing whether you achieved your objectives from last year. I had five objectives, of which I have achieved “pass final exams at first attempt” and “undertake in-charge role on 5 assignments during the year”. I’ve assessed myself as achieving 4/5 of the objective “gain experience of report writing by drafting Key Issues Memos for jobs where the in charge role is undertaken”, and 1/2 of the objectives “reduce the use of email communication with colleagues” and “ensure knowledge gained on IDEA course is put into practice during the year”. On paper, it doesn’t look so bad but unfortunately the only two jobs that I’ve worked on for my line manager this year have gone badly wrong. One of them was my fault, one of them wasn’t my fault but my name is vaguely associated with it so it won’t have left a good impression
Section C is “Other Achievements”. I concluded that I regrettably didn’t have any 
Section D is a summary of your performance in the period; having reread it, what I wrote was a little defensive… Section E is your objectives for the next period, which is currently blank. I told my manager I didn’t want to set any until I’d read what he wrote, and in the end he offered to write them for me. I await the result with interest… Section F is my training and development, which is also a little sparse as I haven’t organised myself to book any courses going forward. Section G is called “Career Progression”, in which you have to rate your job satisfaction and give reasons for your score. Last year I wrote “not applicable” in response to the question “What changes could be made to make your job more satisfying?”. That didn’t seem to go down too well, so this year I’ve written that I need to learn to drive. You also have to say where you envisage your career going in the next five years. I’ve opted for a rather literal interpretation of the question, and said that I envisage mine being in Leicester. I haven’t specified that I envisage it being as an accountant
Wish me luck…
Tags: appraisals