Perf Eval - ee comments
HR rosie
16 Posts
We are in the process of revising our performance appraisal form. I put in a section for "Employee Comments". One of our VPs convinced the President that to allow employee comments was a bad idea because the employee could write negative comments about the company that would become part of the personnel file and if there was ever a lawsuit where the ee's file was subpeonaed, the negative comments would be a part of the file the attorneys could review and use against us. I disagreed and am in the process of searching for documentation and/or recommendations to support my view that to disallow an employee's comments is contrary to the entire evaluation process.
Does anyone have an opinion (or ammunition) they would like to share with me? I would really appreciate it!
Does anyone have an opinion (or ammunition) they would like to share with me? I would really appreciate it!
Comments
Hope this helps
Second, any executive who doesn't want to hear what employees have to say about the company is hiding his/her head in the sand.
We encourage employee comments (good and bad) during the evaluation period and deal with them constructively. We may not always agree with the employee's comments, but at least he/she feels they've been heard and that in and of itself can help "de-fuse" a potentially volatile (or litigious) situation.
That VP does have his head in the sand. It sounds like there are problems there that no one wants to deal with. And they think if no one says anything on paper we don't have to deal with it. The problems are not going to go away, one day they will explode (union, lawsuit, etc.) If you have a negative comment on a review, you resolve it. If you can't resolve it, you state the business reason behind it and move on. If the person who made the comment can't move on, you move them out.
One more thought. If you are involved in a lawsuit, the least of your worries is a negative comment on an appraisal form. Does your VP think that if there is nothing on the appraisal form the judge will throw the suit out? HA! Your biggest worry would be if it is a legitimate complaint such as harassment or discrimination, what have you done about it. If you don't have a system for employees to discuss their issues, it will be more difficult to defend. The, "We didn't know about it defense" hasn't worked in years.