10 months ago, I had my first Performance Appraisal with my new boss. Like everyone else, I had to set my ‘targets and objectives’ for the year. This, I was told, would enable Senior Management to ‘assess my performance’ over the coming 12 month period and reflect on any ‘outstanding achievements’, or indeed ‘areas for improvement’, within that period.
Understandable, I thought, makes sense.
However, on reflection, 10 months later, I look back and have been wondering why that appraisal did nothing for my motivation, or hasn’t affected or improved my performance at work! Surely that was the aim? Was I getting lazy? Didn’t I ‘get it’?
I have been pondering this for a while now and have only just recently realised why! Apart from the fact that some experts claim that appraisals don’t work anyway, that they "encourage mediocrity by rewarding safe behavior as opposed to risk-taking … employees are rewarded for not being challenged and creative."
But for me, it’s simpler than that! I’m a Studio Manager, a Graphic Designer… I’m a ‘creative’ type, if you will!
Targets and Objectives are fairly easy to set if you work in a Sales team or if you develop a Product, for example! If you sell or develop x amount of y within z months, then you’ve achieved the target or goal that you set!
I don’t fit into this category by a long shot, so my question is:
“…how the feck do you measure creativity?”One of the reasons for setting goals in these appraisals are to give the employee a motivation to ‘earn more money’ or ‘gain a promotion’ or other such rewards.
However, creative people are a different breed, we are motivated by ‘intrinsic’ rather than ‘extrinsic’ reward. This means that I am happier to see a well-designed piece of work coming together in an imaginative or innovative way, rather than be paid a bonus for it! It’s the ‘warm feeling inside’, and indeed the recognition, that motivates me.
I’m not an idiot, however, the money is nice and we all need that or we wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning…but it doesn’t ‘motivate’ me to come up with my best work!
Sure, you might argue that we can then set a goal to ‘create x amount of designs in an imaginative or innovative way’…but in my view, that’s not how to get the ‘best’ out of a designer. After all, it’s probably one of the few areas of employment where it’s about ‘quality rather than quantity’!
A designer doesn’t know where or when inspiration for a good design will come about, if he’s rushed into coming up with ‘x’ amount of ideas within a deadline, they won’t be the best he can come up with. Almost guaranteed!
As a Studio Manager, I need to have these ‘performance appraisals’ with my own team, they need to set their targets and goals for the 12 months ahead and we’ll use that to assess their performance…blah blah blah!
But if appraisals don’t work for me…why the heck would it work for them?
Don’t get me wrong, I understand why some people need appraisals and it really benefits their performance at work, etc. But I just don’t think that it works for everyone…at least not done in the traditional way!
I do believe that performance at work needs to be reviewed and monitored, obviously, and I do think that it CAN benefit creative people, so I have been looking at alternative methods.
I have decided that I would want to have a ‘Creative Review’ rather than an appraisal.
Simply put, my team objectives for the year would be to develop and apply the corporate brand and materials in a way that is attractive, appealing, consistent, and comes across strong and confident, so as to instil an element of trust in the customer.
A Creative Review would be a look back at all the work which has been done by the designer over the last, say, 6 months. It would be laid out in chronological order and the whole ‘journey’ would be assessed by both designer and manager.
"Does it portray the corporate brand in a consistent, attractive and appealing way?"
"Does it represent the brand in a way that portrays a strong and confident company?"
"Does it ‘develop’ the brand in a way which takes the identity of the company forward?"
And as a manager, if I thought the answer to any of the above was ‘no’, then the designer is not meeting the company’s, and therefore, their own, objectives!
But then, who am I to say? Isn’t all of design subjective? I may not think it represents the brand in a strong way, but someone else may think otherwise!
I agree that "creative peoples" performance should be judged more in a qualitative way rather than quantitative but working in a busy graphics department could you not work in some element of qualitative goal-setting on areas such as learning new software or design techniques or even rating their ability to turn in jobs on time and with as few copy errors(from the design side) as possible? Just a couple of ideas.
ReplyDelete"But then, who am I to say? Isn’t all of design subjective? I may not think it represents the brand in a strong way, but someone else may think otherwise!"
Design is subjective but as a manager it is your role to say what works and doesn't and I'm sure the marketing department will have a lot to say too. ;-)
Hey ab
ReplyDeleteCheers for the comments ;-)
Yup, I agree that one area of measurable target or goal setting, which we do already do, is personal and self-development, i.e. learning new software or techniques etc. But I like to think of that as something that should be ongoing to help someone achieve a company or personal objective, and not an objective in itself (I think!). Besides, I think that someone needs to 'want' to learn something, if they are to gain benefit from it, and not feel 'forced' to by having it agreed as an objective.
Also the copy error checking is something which is also in place but is only a percentage of what we do so to base an appraisal on it would be, I feel, unfair. It is also affected by outside influences, i.e. the quality of the proofreader, etc.
Design IS subjective, as we agree, so it's not up to me to say if something will work or not. I can definitely use the benefit of my experience to comment on whether I feel that something is within brand guidelines or perhaps how it could be improved to attract more attention (depending on the purpose of the work), but essentially it's the customer who'll make the decision about whether it works or not, and that will vary from individual to individual too!
...but yes, Marketing (the client) will always have the final say ;-)