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INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

COURSE: PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL AND

MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT:
APPRAISAL POLICY OF A COMPANY(TCS)

GROUP MEMBERS:
SAMRA NAEEM 22236
WANIA FATIMA 22293
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TCS APPRAISAL PROCESS

More or less it is the appraisal process followed in all IT companies like WIPRO, CTS
(Cognizant), INFOSYS and others

All the associates in TCS are rated on a scale of 0-5, 5 being the highest. In first year, employees
are quarterly rated, i.e. their performance would be evaluated every 3 months by your immediate
supervisor (project leader. Project leader would rate employees according to their performance in
his project in every forthcoming quarter. After employee complete 1 year, employees 'll have 4
ratings (one from every quarter).

The management has a curve and they follow a process popularly known as Bell Curve.
According to that curve, you'll get your confirmation rating.

The Bell Curve Factor

Bell Curve: - Suppose there are 100 associates in a particular account in which say 10 projects
are in progress. In every project, there are 10 associates and one of them is a project leader (PL).
Over every 2-3 projects, there is a Project Manager (PM). And overall Project Managers, there is
an account manager (AM). And over account managers, there is Group Leader (GL).

In the mentioned process, GL gives guidelines to all the AMs regarding the ratings to be
distributed in their respective accounts. This is transferred to PM and ultimately to PL levels.
Suppose, according to guidelines, out of 10 associates in every project, 2 can get a rating of 5, 3
to be given a rating of 4, 4 to be given a rating of 3 and 1 has to be given a rating of 2. This is
how it is distributed. Now, PL - PM have to identify who should be put into which slot. This
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whole process is known as Curve Fitting wherein PMs and PLs are fitting you at a particular
location of the curve given by the GL.

TCS's performance appraisal system is supported by an online system called the Human
Resource Management System- an Oracle Developer based tool. The system individual right
from his biographical details to his projects performance. An employee's performance history at
the click of a button and this accurately maintained for all employees! Right from his entry, an
employee in TCS get formal performance feedback once every two months till such time that he
is confirmed after which the performance feedback is provided twice every year on a formal
basis. TCS however widely encourages informal feedback discussions between Project Leaders
and Team Members and this concept has found an overwhelming
appeal among the people.

TCS conducts two appraisals:

1. At the end of the year
2. At the end of a project.

Appraisals are based on Balanced Scorecard, which tracks the achievement of employees on the
basis of targets at four levels —
. financial
. customer
. internal
. learning and growth

The financial perspective quantifies the employee’s contribution in terms of revenue growth, cost
reduction, improved asset utilization and so on; The customer perspective looks at the
differentiating value proposition offered by the employee; the internal perspective refers to the
employee’s contribution in creating and sustaining value; the learning and growth are self-
explanatory. The weightage given to each attribute is based on the function the employee
performs. Based on their individual achievements, employees are rated on a scale of one to five
(five = “superstar”). If employees get a low rating (less than two) in two consecutive
appraisals, the warning flags go up.

TCS functions on the following four services

 Global Consulting. TCS delivers integrated, IT-enabled business transformation services that
help client align their business operations and technology systems. ...
 Enterprise Solutions. ...
 IT Infrastructure Services. ...
 Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
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GAPS IN THE APPRAISAL POLICY

Bell curve system of performance appraisal is a forced ranking system imposed on the
employees by the management. Through this system, the organization tries to segregate the best,
mediocre and worst performers and nurture the best and discard the worst. And this segregation
is based on a relative comparison of the performance of the workforce against those engaged in a
similar activity and ranking them accordingly.

Bell curve method assumes that employees in a company can be divided into groups such as:

 High Performers – Top 20%

 Average Performers – The middle 70%
 Non-Performers or Below Average Performers – The bottom 10%.

Disadvantages of the Bell curve in Performance appraisal:

 The Bell curve model might turn out to be too rigid in cases where the employee strength
in the organization is less. Here the manager might be forced to put employees in specific
ratings just for the sake of bell curve requirements.

 As in the bell curve model, the managers can give only a limited number of employees in
the top performer’s category, employees who have actually performed exceedingly well
through the year might be forced to be categorized in the Average performers’ category
for some valid Bell curve requirements. This will lead to a loss of morale among the
employees.

 But we should understand that timely and appropriate feedback is definitely essential to
improve employee performance. Telling everyone they are doing better than what we
expect from them might send a wrong message to the employee that they need not strive
more for success.
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NEW APPRAISAL SYSTEM OF TCS

Here are five things you should know about TCS new appraisals

1) No more half-yearly appraisals ...

Employees will not have half-yearly assessments, they will be assessed after every
project. The projects could last from months to a year, but targeted workers will be
considered for appraisal after the completion of their project work

2) Separate appraisal systems for IT and BPO employees...

Sources said TCS was building a technology platform to manage the regular feedback
process. Henceforth, those working in the IT sector will be considered for appraisal
according to their performance in the particular project, whereas work of the BPO
employees will be judged on the basis of regular feedback.

3) Stage-wise timelines discontinued

The TCS had discontinued the stage-wise timelines for appraisal process last year itself,
to start the continuous feedback process. This will be encouraged more and will be useful
for those working in the BPO sections of the company.

4) TCS is the fourth company to build new platform

Before TCS, HCL Technologies had changed its platform of appraisal and had called it
iSuccess. The Wipro had called their new platform Performance Next and Infosys
launched iCOunt Platform, this year. Let us wait and see what the TCS is going to name
its new appraisal platform.

5) Not for implementation with immediate effect

According to the report in Economic Times, ‘Appraisal cycle changes are still in beta
form and will be rolled out to other employees over time.’