Customers’ Feedback as a Component of Performance Appraisal

Feedback is an important component of performance appraisal. Involving customers in performance appraisals remains however a rarity in Germany. Generally, customers are also not involved into performance management.

Scouting China or Poland for that matter shows however a handful of examples how a feedback on customers representative performance can be an integral part of any interaction with the client. Banks clientele can assess tellers on a three point scale using a feedback devise right at the counter. Similar machines are placed next to immigration officers at Hong Kong borders. Next, some restaurants are fitted with communication devises with the staff including commands such as “We’d like to order”, “Please bring me some water”, “We’d like to pay” and “I enjoyed eating here today”. Furthermore, a feedback on a five point scale via text message is sought by travel sites after every call with the hotline representative. In Poland, the largest polish job board is bringing direct customer feedback into B2B world.



After posting an ad, one is asked to provide an assessment of cooperation with the sales representative.

The rating system has a high relevance to all client facing roles. As any other performance appraisal system, customer feedback must be linked to rewards. Otherwise, the process lacks impact. However, multiple advantages of customers’ ratings exist:
* Applying customers’ ratings at the point of contact produce reliable and consistent measurement of performance.
* The customers’ rating system is especially valuable to the employees’ development and satisfaction as it allows setting up objective goals more easily.
* It provides a simple format, it is brief (not time-consuming), easy to understand, and elicit useful information (customers’ satisfaction level with the service).
* It is designed to provide timely, impersonal and regular feedback, so that the employees can immediately know how their work is perceived by the customers.
* Employees can directly adjust their behavior to costumers’ expectations, thereby influencing the ratings.

As more and more, human resource professionals consider themselves in service to the internal clients, I wonder either they would welcome such feedback loop every time they deliver the service to company’s employees and managers.

Application Feedback

Research done by Shaker Consulting Group shows that all candidates despite their potential to hire have the same expectations in terms of information received about their application process. The key questions rated as critical need to know (by 80% or more of the survey respondents) include:
1. Do you receive my application?
2. When will I hear back from you?
3. Have I been knocked out of the process?
4. What is the time frame for filling the job?
5. What is the next step in the process?
6. Has anyone actually looked at my application?
7. Where am I in the process?

Human resource departments can extend some common courtesy by meeting the timeline expectations of the candidates.

A good way to do so is informing the candidates electronically
* when the company will be in contact with the selected candidates
* when the interviews will be held, or
* when it is planned to fill the job.

The information can be placed in the job ad or email correspondence to the candidate (with help of auto-response functionality) or in application process overview when utilizing online application tools.

A standardized note suffices
* We reserve the right to contact selected candidates no later than DATE.
* Interviews for candidates advancing in our process will be conducted by DATE.
* This position will be filled by DATE.

Leaving an applicant without any sort of response is a no go.

Who are German HR Professionals?

Accordingly to Human Resources Manager, a German trade magazine for HR pros, one HR professional serves on average 100 employees in German companies.

By analysing data on a salary benchmarking site gehaltsvergleich.de we can understand better who German HR professionals are.

In March 2011, 308 HR professionals shared demographic information, information on their educational background and experience, as well as the employment details. Some 121 of them were male, 187 female. The average age of males was 41, of females 37.

Female are the majority of workers in HR departments in the age group younger then 44, male dominate in the age group 45+.

Males in HR department have on average higher level of education. In contrast, females attend further training and development workshops more frequently. At the same time, females completed their studies rather recently, while males are out of school for several years.

HR Professionals who have maximal five years of professional experience are mostly female (85 percent). The share of male and female among the professionals with 10+ years of experience is about the same.

Female HR professionals work more often part-time then their male counterparts. Among workers working more then 40 hours a week (most frequently 42 hour week) the share of male HR professionals is twice as large as the share of females.

Females usually work in companies with less then 500 employees. In companies employing between 501 and 999 employees, males prevail. About the same share of female and male HR professionals work at companies with 1000+ employees.

Some 70 percent of HR professionals work in small HR departments, staffed with 1 to 5 HR employees.

You can call me Jack

When speaking with someone formally or informally in English, the “you” is used and there is no other alternative. The only difference is how the person can be addressed, for example, "Mr. Smith" or "Dr. Smith" or “Jack”.

German language differentiates between the formal (duzen) and informal (siezen) communication. Traditionally, the formal way was reserved for professional and business settings. Nowadays however, colleagues increasingly tend to be on a first-name basis even as communication with the customers remains formal at all times. Businesses often go about it without any policy while human resource departments swing back and forth between formal and informal communication. Hence even with a single company, an employee can experience the following throughout the employee life cycle:

* Formal (intending to exhibit professionalism) and informal (trying to attract youngsters) job ads
* Formal candidate communication
* Informal communication from the moment of contract signing to voluntary departure
* Formal communication in warning and dismissal letters

So, deliberately or not, the choice of communication mode depends on the message. As consistent communication fosters development of trust and creates a level of loyalty to the employer, companies should align the way to address their people, i.e. have guts to address informally any candidate (a stranger at first) despite how senior they are in their careers or any employee to be dismissed. It is just too ridiculous to call an employee by name when they are good employees, but go over to communicating with them formally once problems occur.

Failure to instill a consistent communication has a detrimental impact on the business as a whole, and makes very difficult to retain and nurture employees.

Informal Job Ad a trend - Informal Application a taboo

There is a trend in Germany to edit job ads in an informal way. Those job ads utilize informal ways of communication (duzen) and hope to attract "young" and cool candidates as well as display company culture.

There is no research showing how these job ads are received by the candidates. I suppose many candidates are at ease with them as they do send in their applications. Maybe some are rather turned off, but this is the risk the company takes.

What's most interesting for me at this point is whether any HR staff hopes to receive job applications utilizing the same code of communication.

Does Mrs. Elke Schneider, an imaginative recruiter at a company X for the purpose of this blog post, look forward to receiving cover letter starting "Dear Elke" (Liebe Elke)?

Does she appreciate to be called Elke by an applicant calling to find out more about the advertised position?

Does an informal cover letter boost one's application or disqualifies an applicant?

Dating employees

Do you remember the song „All you need is love” by The Beatles. Love can make a person’s life more fulfilling. But companies, couple run companies excluded, are seldom proponents of this maxim. On the contrary, companies are not enthused by staff dating. Restrictions if imposed may refer to bosses dating direct reports, co-workers in the same department or generally any employees. Though most will not put a formal policy to govern this issue, very few are probably really happy about such developments.

Dating employees is a good sign and acknowledgment of HR. The hiring process accomplishes what it intends to do. It brings on board people who are alike, are a fit and have some commonalities. And above all they enjoy working with each other so great that they want to hand out after work as well.

Given Valentine’s Day, I won’t bring up the downside of employees’ dating.

Job Titles to attract Career Changers

Talent shortage pushes recruiters to seek talent in other industries then their own. Niche job boards enable them to do it effectively.

With the recent job ads, Enterprise, a car rental company, seeks talent with hospitality background for their management training program. Enterprise looks for qualities associated with hospitality industry such as high service attitude, guest care skills and experience in ensuring customer satisfaction.



What makes the ad different? Well, it is their job title.

A high level of attractiveness of a job title is one rule of thumb when phrasing successful job ads. Candidates are attracted to jobs that have titles they aspire to, present some sort of professional enhancement, possibly are higher in the job hierarchy or simply are associated with a greater status (e.g. personal assistant as opposed to secretary).

Enterprise’s job titles is not a “next role” that candidate might be interested in, but precisely candidate’s “current role” or generally her educational background. Enterprise attracts attention by easy identification among their intended audience (“this is me” instead of “could this be me”). The job ad itself plays on a common note, suggesting a poor satisfaction with the current role, and hopes to motivate the candidate to change their career.