Chapter 49 Performance reviews are hoes

I asked Zhang Yong: "You don't even check the turnover of each hotpot restaurant?" Zhang Yong said: "Yes. Not only do we not assess the profit of each store, we also do not assess the turnover and some KPIs that are often used in the catering industry, such as the consumption per customer. These indicators are also result indicators. If a manager is very We have to wait until these results come out to know whether the business is good or bad, and the cucumber vegetables will go cold sooner. This is equivalent to treating river pollution. If you don’t treat the source of pollution, what’s the use of testing, filtering, and sludge removal in the downstream?”

Zhang Yong, who just became an EMBA student of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, told me after the performance appraisal class: "Mr. Huang, I think the company decomposes the result indicators as goals for each department and employee, and then conducts appraisals based on this. The practice of incentives and punishment sounds scientific and reasonable, but it is too difficult to implement. Because enterprise performance is the result of the collaborative work of all employees, and the roles of each department and employee are different, the indicators should be different. How to determine these Indicators must be done by people who know how to do it, otherwise they will definitely pick up sesame seeds and lose watermelons, or even get crooked exams.

When I say knowledgeable, I don't mean people who understand human resources, but people who know how to do business and manage. "We now only have three types of indicators for the assessment of each hot pot restaurant, one is customer satisfaction, the other is employee enthusiasm, and the third is cadre training." I said, "These indicators are all qualitative, how do you evaluate them?" Zhang Yong said: "Yes, it is a qualitative indicator. You can only evaluate qualitative things. Mr. Huang, I really don't understand why these scientific management tools have to give scores to qualitative indicators. For example, customer satisfaction. Do you want to send a satisfaction survey form to each customer? Think about it, how many customers are willing to fill in that form for you after they are full of wine and food? Doesn’t it increase customer dissatisfaction by asking customers to fill out the form? Besides, people How credible is the form that I reluctantly filled out for you out of face?"

I said, "Then how do you measure customer satisfaction?" He said: "We just let the store manager's direct superior - the community manager often inspect the store. Not on a regular basis, but at any time. The community manager and their assistants constantly communicate with the store manager, and what aspects of customer satisfaction are better than others?" The past is good, which ones are worse than the past; this month, there are more regular customers, but there are still fewer. Our community managers are all waiters, and their satisfaction with customers is of course the judgment of insiders.

"The same is true for the assessment of employee enthusiasm. You, Mr. Huang, will definitely not succeed in the assessment, because you see that every waiter is running around, smiling and nothing different. But I will tell you: Look at that boy The girl’s hair grew beyond the rules; this girl’s make-up was so-so; some employees’ shoes were dirty; that employee stood there with his eyes open and his head was distracted. Isn’t this a sign of employee enthusiasm?! Shop The same is true for the assessment of the leader to the team leader, and the team leader's assessment of the employees, all of which are qualitative assessments."

I asked again: "Their bonuses are determined based on these qualitative assessments?" Zhang Yong said: "Not only bonuses, but also their promotion and demotion are based on these three indicators. If you think about it, how can an unfair store manager, the waiters under him, be generally motivated? The enthusiasm of the waiters is not high. How can customer satisfaction be high? In this case, you will wait until the store’s turnover and profit figures come out before reminding him or replacing him, because the result will definitely not be good, even if it is good, it is not his fault. We have a very profitable store, but the store manager just can’t bring it up, because his ability to train people is not good. When he is on vacation, there will be troubles in the store.

Then even if his store is very profitable, he may be demoted. " I said again: "According to your assessment method, the fate of subordinates is determined by the direct supervisor. Is this fair and objective enough?" Zhang Yong said: "Not all, but mainly decided by the superior. If you think about it, the superior spends the longest time with his direct subordinates, has the most work contacts, and knows the subordinate's work status and behavior best. If he is wrong The promotion of subordinates plays a major role in deciding who is more qualified to make the decision? Is it objective to judge the judgment of most people with data? I don’t think so. Other people’s opinions can only serve as a reference. If When other colleagues have opinions on this person, they will usually express it consciously or unconsciously. As a superior who is often with him, it is easy to find that this is also an aspect of the superior's evaluation of the subordinate.

"Of course, our qualitative assessment is not that the superiors say you can do it, you can do it. We have also gradually explored some verification procedures and standards, such as re-checking the assessments of each store by means of spot checks and mysterious visitors. The results of these assessments have to go through the previous At the same time, we have a leapfrog complaint mechanism. When a subordinate finds that the superior is unfair, especially in terms of character, the subordinate can complain to the superior at any time, even to the regional manager and the headquarters.

"What does it mean to be objective? I think this kind of judgment by a knowledgeable manager is more objective than those obtained by scientific and quantitative assessment tools, at least in our hot pot industry. Are you right? Huang Teacher." Zhang Yong asked me challengingly. I asked: "Which consulting company did you hire to help you develop your performance appraisal system?" Zhang Yong said: "We didn't ask a consulting company to do it. We just explored it while opening a store. Of course, there are many problems. We also want to ask a consulting company to verify whether our approach is correct, but the experts of the consulting company are very few. I have worked in such a low-end industry as hot pot.

"Once, one of you who graduated from Peking University and worked as a senior consultant in a foreign consulting company asked me, what indicators do you use to judge the business of a store? I said, I don't use indicators, I will go to that store to have a look He said, what if your Haidilao opened 1,000 stores? I said, then I will train 100 community managers who are similar to me.” After listening to Zhang Yong's performance evaluation, I remembered my experience of graduating from middle school in the city and going to the countryside as an educated youth more than 30 years ago.In the first year, the educated youths from the city only received half the wages of the rural youths who did the same job.The captain said: "Others use a hoe to shovel the grass and keep the seedlings; but you shovel the saplings and keep the grass, and half of the wages are given to take care of you!"

We were speechless, because we grew up in the city and just went to the countryside, so we couldn't tell the difference between grass and seedlings. It turns out that the performance evaluation tool is a hoe, which can be shoveled by knowledgeable managers, and seedlings that can be shoveled by unskilled managers.No wonder Zhang Yong's heart disease is to cultivate people.He wanted someone who could not only use a hoe, but also be able to distinguish seedlings from grass.