Dear All,

My query is somewhat similar to add-on to Dipankar's question. 

Many organizations today are looking at a robust and effective performance management system. And the down turn in the economy effecting the IT players specially they have been revamping and redesigning their appraisal systems to get tough on poor performers and enhance their performance culture.

In this context I would like to know the feeling of the group regarding:

What should be the ideal system of performance appraisals in IT companies.

I would like to this in the context of - Typically in IT organizations a employee can be working on different projects (often 4 in a year) and can be reporting to different project
leaders, project managers. And also we have the issue of non billable resources where employees do not have projects to work and are in the non billable resource pool.

What can an organization do to manage the effects of the new appraisal system?

In the context of- When the previous appraisal system has been changed with a large emphasis now on "going beyond ones role". In IT industry where many of the jobs the employees are handling are routine coding and production support type of profile where there is not much of scope for "going beyond ones role"! Thoughts on this also invited.

And is normalization or forced distribution of all the associates into percentage slots (e.g. A raters can be only 5% of the org etc.) the right performance management method.

Where in, the lowest performer might not be that much lower than the highest and there is danger of penalizing a good, but not great employee who's part of a superstar team, but a mediocre employee on a struggling team can come out looking great.

Are forced ranking systems the most effective way to identify and get rid of poor performers?

Looking forward to your inputs and comments.

Thanks
nagarajan