I know a person who works for a reputed IT company in India, he has got 4 years of experience in IT industry. He works very hard at work, goes to office in the morning at 9 am and invariably leaves office at 10 pm. Routinely goes to office on one of the days of weekend, sometimes both the days.
He does his best to ensure timely delivery matching reasonable quality standards. But from the past three years, his appraisal rating remained a constant 3 (on scale of 5), was never 1 or 2. Rating 3 out of 5 signifies that the work done by the employee was just OK.
When I had asked him what he thought was the reason for getting a poorer grade than that he actually deserved, he told me that he had no idea whatsoever. His philosophy at work was to deliver on time, try to do his work individually without interference and to silently accomplish the tasks assigned to him and wait for magical results.
He expects the boss to notice his work, acknowledge the efforts he puts in and appreciate him. In a very rare case, you will get to work with such an ideal boss who keeps his eyes wide open and constantly evaluates you based on the amount efforts you put in rather than on the high level results.
Do you find yourself in same position as that of this person? Read on for some tips that can boost your appraisal rating next year.
Give micro updates to your boss (every day)
Frequent & short updates are better than infrequent & lengthy updates. Update your boss with your progress via email or phone call or face-to-face chat. Giving updates is one of your most important untold responsibilities. Don’t wait until your Boss sends you an email or comes to your desk to find out your progress. Send daily updates to your boss. Make it a habit to go to your boss’s desk at least twice a day. Discovered something interesting, show it to your boss. Solved a critical bug, boast about it to your supervisor. Daily reports are more effective and powerful than bi-weekly or monthly status reports.
Change your seat nearer to the team
I can tell you out of my personal experience that I had a bad performance review just because of the reason that I was sitting in a cubicle which was far from where my boss and rest of the team sat. Though this was not the reason that was given by my boss in appraisal, it was the obvious to me why all my hard work went unnoticed. I spent most of the time in my cubicle and rarely met team mates or the boss face to face though they were on the same floor. If you are sitting in a seat which is away from where rest of the team sits, then change your seat immediately. Sitting in the proximity of the team helps in many ways. You can ask for help by just dragging your chair to the next desk.
Socialize with the team
Human relations are far more powerful than professional relations. Try to befriend your colleagues, specially your team lead and your project manager. Friends help you, they forgive your mistakes easily, they even cover your mistakes at times. But you can’t expect any such favour from your professional colleagues or your boss. Grab every opportunity you get to socialize with the team. Never miss a project party. That is the best time when you can see the human part of your team mates. Your boss will forget his superiority and will interact with you like your colleague. Joke, have fun and enjoy. Don’t feel shy to socialize in such events. These casual meet-ups make a great difference in the team, they build rapport between individuals and improve friendly relations.
Never say that you don’t know
I don’t know if this applies to the rest of the world, but I know for sure that in India, if you admit in public that you don’t know something, you are instantly classified as a fool. Being too straight forward and frank is a bane in India. If you don’t know something, you should never accept that fact. You should cover it up by either confusing others, or by diverting their attention towards something you already know or by asserting something that they can’t verify.
Volunteer to speak in meetings
May it be a daily standup meeting or a quarterly progress meeting or an annual meeting, grab the mike and speak. In any industry, extroverts are usually more successful than the introverts. If you keep it to yourself, people will think that you are an ignorant person. In corporate world, verbosity is a gift, reticence is a curse that hampers your career success. Given a chance, speak at every event. If you are team of three who works together for a specific goal, volunteer to speak on behalf of others in status meetings. Human tendency is to think that the person who speaks is the one who does the work. When Bill Gates speaks to press about a latest Microsoft technology, common people tend to think that he developed the complex product all by himself. The reality is that the technology was created by hundreds of brilliant computer engineers working for Microsoft.
Learn the technical jargon before the technology itself
Every now and then you will be asked to rationalize issues that crept up in your module. If you fail to use complex technical words in your explanation, your project manager and team will tend to think that you know nothing or that you are an idiot. There are so many people in IT industry who are covering their technical incapability with their gifted skill of twisting technical words into complex sentences. Simplicity is not ultimate sophistication in India. Obfuscation is ultimate sophistication here. Remember the scene in movie 3 Idiots, when Aamir Khan answers a question put by his professor? Aamir replies in simple words and the professor doesn’t appreciate his answer. That is the truth. Don’t be in a false belief that simple communication impresses people.
Help others’ solving their issues (and highlight yourself )
Help others whenever possible. But do not entertain casual requests for help. Be strict to tell your colleagues to drop an official email copied to your team lead and/or your project manager. This is helpful in two ways – your boss gets to know that you are busy doing a task and your help will be noticed. If you don’t go through the official channel, you will invite trouble by getting stuck in others task. If the help or assistance is oral, then you can give it casually without any official request email. This will help you grow your importance in the team and build your brand in the team. People will remember that this person is dependable and can be approached for help. He is capable of helping people. Though you may not solve their problem, you will be remembered for volunteering to help them..
Give updates to your boss (not to peers)
This is one of the unethical sounding tip. But then, not following this tip is the biggest suicidal mistake that you can ever commit. This world is filled with smart people, who are waiting for every chance to steal your credit, claim your analysis. Especially the technically less capable ones who don’t know how to explain when there is an issue. Give update to your boss, and then to your peers. The order is very important. If you update your peers first, there are chances of them going to the boss’s desk faster than you and claim your analysis as theirs. You don’t want to allow charlatans to do such things to you. Do you?
Build rapport with your Lead
Some people exaggerate this friendship and crudely call it “boot licking”. I prefer to call it “rapport building”. Team Lead plays a key role in deciding an employee’s appraisal rating. He is the second most influential person after the project manager in your team. He can do wonders by giving a good feedback about you to the project manager. On the other hand, he can screw your salary hike by presenting you in a bad shape in front of the project manager. As the project manager does not directly interact with you, he has little idea about your performance and skills. Team leads are project manager’s eyes and ears. Befriend your lead.
Don’t feel shy to ask what you want
Tell in advance to your supervisor what you want. Do you want an onsite opportunity? Do you want to get the best rating in appraisal? Are you looking forward for a salary hike coming year? Are you wanting to get a promotion? Tell it straight to you project manager, an year in advance. This approach has several advantages. Firstly, your boss would know that you are going to be upset if he doesn’t give you what you want. So the risk of boss trying to fool you by giving you a bad rating in return for good performance is minimized by this approach. Secondly, it is like commitment with your boss that you will do a great job in return for the reward that you expect.
Ensure you are doing a happening task
This is the most powerful tip of this lot. Always work in a module which has direct impact on the live environment. Do not spend more time in tasks that have little significance in the project. Insist to work in the module that has great importance, that has client’s concern. A mediocre job done in an important module is more appreciated than a great job done in an unimportant one.
Encounter a problem? Escalate it asap
Remember the Exception handling mechanism in Java? What should a method do if it catches an Exception? It should delegate it to the next level so that top level code can handle the Exception. What happens if the exception is caught right inside that method and no action is taken? The application will act unusually as the Error dies before warning the user. The user of that application gets frustrated as he has neither has control of that issue nor does he have information of the error. Similarly when you encounter a problem which is not in your scope and power, immediately delegate it to the higher level of management. By delaying escalation you getting yourself into deep trouble.
Don’t wait for your boss to assign work
Like typical Indian project managers insist in a performance review discussions, “Be Proactive”. If no work has been assigned to you, jump to your feet and ask for work. Show your boss that you are interested in taking up a new task. Let him know that you are free. Though it is your boss’s job to keep you busy, he may blame you for not pro-actively asking for work. This can become a big minus.
Never quarrel with your boss
This sounds very obvious, but very few realize the true importance of not getting into any verbal fights with bosses. Remember this simple rule, “He is your BOSS.” He would be pleased to screw your ratings and sympathize you post appraisal innocently trying to help you. It is a well known fact that, there is no way that you can challenge the appraisal grades given by manager in India. In case you already have fought with your boss, all you can do to save your performance review is to pray. The best way to handle this is to avoid arguments in the first place.
Don’t put your boss in trouble
On the occasions when your boss counts on you, ensure that you don’t fail him. His failure is your failure. Remember one thing, any project manager in the world keep his appraisal goals above anyone else. His performance review is more important to him than yours is to him. If he does well at his performance review because of a good job done by you, he will give you a good review. Conversely, if your bad job screws his appraisal, he won’t spare yours.
Just give him what he wants
Don’t expect that your boss will give you One Minute Goals and define what good performance according to him is, like a One Minute Manager does. You should find it out yourself. Not just once in an year, but every single quarter. You should request him to tell you clearly what he is expecting of you. Every manager has a standard answer for this question. Try to extract his expectations beyond what he says. Patiently ask him to clarify his expectations from you. Once you know, just give it to him precisely what he wants.
I don’t know how it works in rest of the world, but this is how it works in India. I have articulated powerful principles, which I have collected over years in my personal experience, and from successful IT engineers who managed to get great grades year after year. These tips when applied for an year without fail will assure you a good performance review the coming year.
Apologize for not maintaining gender neutrality in the article. Though I used he/him/his, it was not intended to refer only to males.
About the Author: This post was written by a guest at Interview Mantra. If you are interested in contributing guest posts, contact us. 
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