Is the lack of an appraisal at workplaces in India the result of a looming global recession?

While the state of appraisals differs across various fields, have people begun to lose hope in the whole process?

It was a forecast in stone; the writing, so to speak, was on the wall: a global economic recession was imminent in 2023. The reality, though, has been anything but uniform. In the United States, for instance, the unemployment rate has stabilised. In India, meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose to a three-month high at 7.8 per cent in March this year, compounded by a huge drop in the labour participation rate. However, this rise was on the heels of the unemployment rate in the country decreasing in the first two months of 2023. 

Regardless of how one sees it, the recession story has already been weaponised, used, and abused, no matter what field you might be in. That promotion you were hoping against hope to get? Not anymore. A 15 per cent hike in your next appraisal? You can only dream about it. At a time when freelancing gigs can be unstable and the lure of a full-time job may be appealing to some, appraisals hold the only hope–to tide out the sudden increase in inflation or to apply for that loan. 

But are companies across the board really extending appraisals as an olive branch to retain their critical employees? Or, is the lack of appraisal another form of quiet firing–one of those workplace trends where your employer will not directly fire you but create enough situations that will force you to evaluate your job and life itself?

The need for appraisals

Appraisals—or the process of evaluating the value, quality, or performance of an object or individual—have been a part of human history for centuries. One of the earliest examples of appraisals can be traced back to ancient Egypt, where scribes were required to evaluate the quality of papyrus scrolls and pottery. Similarly, in ancient Greece, appraisals were conducted to determine the value of land, livestock, and other assets.

Except the Greeks weren’t grappling with an unpredictable pandemic, the looming threat of nuclear wars, communal disharmony and anxiously tracking the rise and fall of COVID-19 cases. With all their expertise in mathematics, they strangely didn’t have to worry about inflation rates having a mind of their own, or the central banks formulating economic policies that never harmonise with ground realities. 

“In my experience, companies are indeed cutting down on appraisals,” says Jatin Jain, who works as a total rewards analyst in Mumbai. “But a lot has to do with the size of companies, too. Most tech organisations are working towards reducing their headcount unless the employee is very critical in terms of their skills. So there aren’t special efforts made to retain all kinds of folks.” 

But how do appraisals work exactly? Jain explains that there is usually a pre-research stage involved for an organisation to decide the appraisal rate for a specific year. More often than not, in tech and computing firms, an external agency is hired to make sense of the market projections, consolidate the data, and then advise. However, Jain says that India is still better off when compared to most countries, in the sense that our national average rate of appraisal, which hovers around nine per cent, is usually higher than the inflation rate which hovers around six to seven per cent. 

In the case of Mahesh Wadhwani, who recently quit his job in a real estate firm, it does not help that a company is established. If your management is shitty, all over the place, and if they spend money on entities that bleed them dry, it’s the employees who have to face the raw end of the deal. “No organisation is big or small enough to fail or be toxic,” he says. “The idea of appraisal is not only related to countering inflation but also to show your employees that you won’t leave them in the dry.”

Wadhwani sees an inherent dichotomy in the statement that recession is the reason why appraisals are being cut. According to him, this is precisely the time when appraisals are needed the most, not when they should be cut. If the companies don’t have enough to tide over the benefits and legal bonuses of their employees even for one financial year, it’s a sure enough sign that they were barely breaking even. 

Structuring the chaos 

It is perhaps common knowledge that the process of appraisals is shrouded in secrecy in most firms and domains in India. Lizanne Dsouza, an HR expert and recruitment consultant, says that India is one of the few countries where companies are not transparent about their finances and profits with their own employees. 

“In bigger companies and MNCs you might still have to be transparent about your profits because the scale is global, but with smaller companies, there is no accountability. In such scenarios, people quit their jobs, and the previous employer will try to poach them again, with the hope of matching the salary. This is not healthy,” she says.

What, then, is the solution? Dsouza says that it’s always a good idea to go back to the hiring process, for anything at all. The root cause, the way she looks at it, is people signing up for the job without reading the fine print or asking the right questions. 

“People love a brand and are desperate to get into it but they don’t ask the right questions. If the interview is a smooth process and all your questions are answered, there is synergy, and these issues will never come up. Almost all the issues will be resolved if you ask them your exact KRAs (Key Responsibility Areas) and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), the specific parameters on which your appraisal will be conducted. It cannot be all vague,” she says. 

However, if that boat has sailed, it is still not too late to stand up for yourself, as opposed to just giving in. Mohsin Dhar, a graphic designer based in Chennai, says that he keeps a record of all his achievements and milestones in the company on the company’s official email. This not only avoids credit-hogging and other office politics but also gives him enough ammunition during the appraisal conversations. 

“In those conversations, your manager needs to trust you enough to know what exactly you’ve worked on. No manager is omnipresent and to expect that they know exactly what you have achieved or done for the company is not a healthy expectation to have. To put it simply, keep all the receipts handy because you never know when you might need them. If it doesn’t work for your current job’s appraisal, it will always work for your portfolio.”

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