I participated as a member of a project to launch a personnel evaluation system for the food and beverage industry, and then spent two years supporting its implementation on-site. What
I experienced there was that the real challenge was not so much the difficulty of creating the system, but the difficulty of continuing to operate it.
In that restaurant business, there had previously been no clear evaluation criteria.
Salary increases and promotions were largely determined by the subjective judgment of management, and the evaluation process was invisible.
Therefore, a project team was formed with senior executives, and a new personnel evaluation system was built in collaboration with external experts.
The evaluation items designed by the external experts at this time were very fundamental. It was not an evaluation for the sake of evaluation, but a system directly linked to the business strategy, where if all employees could achieve perfect scores on these items, the company’s performance would surely improve.
For example, when it comes to skill development for kitchen staff, the criteria are not simply vague like “Can you make delicious food?” Instead, they are
detailed and articulated to show how individual actions contribute to increased sales and profitability, such as “Serving time within X minutes (increasing turnover)” and “Reducing food waste (yield) and properly controlling the cost ratio.”
This made the previously opaque evaluation process transparent, and for employees, it should have become clearer what efforts would be reflected in their salaries.
However, the real test came after the system was established.
The key figure within the company who spearheaded the system’s creation and was intimately familiar with its workings, resigned shortly after its completion.
What remained were the store managers and supervisors on the ground who had not been deeply involved in creating the system.
No matter how excellent the evaluation criteria may be, if the people implementing them do not understand their intent, they cannot realize their value.
This is where my two-year-long, painstaking work began.
As a practitioner, what I struggled with the most was maintaining the extremely basic processes of strictly adhering to the schedule and providing thorough explanations to those who didn’t understand.
Simply handing out evaluation sheets and saying, “Please circle the appropriate items and submit them,” won’t get the team moving.
We held numerous explanatory meetings to carefully explain why each item was included and how to make the right judgments.
For technical evaluations, we supported supervisors who were actually on the job so they could make objective judgments, and we continued to run a complete cycle that included a meeting with the president, feedback, and salary adjustments.
Because small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are prone to relying on individual expertise, it was absolutely essential to thoroughly implement the practical aspects of running the system.
On the other hand, I also had a very bitter experience when I was involved in the operation of the performance evaluation system at another company.
In that company as well, the person who created the system and the person who operated it were different.
The new person in charge of operations decided, “I don’t want to deal with such a complicated system,” and forcibly changed the system because he disliked the burden of operation.
As a result, the system suddenly stopped functioning.
It reverted back to evaluations based on subjective judgments of managers and subjective feelings such as the quality of collaboration.
If evaluation rules become inconsistent every time someone changes, employees will lose trust in the company.
Especially in industries with high employee turnover, talented individuals are more likely to leave quickly if they cannot see a clear roadmap for their future. To retain employees for the
long term, it is crucial that the criteria for guiding them in the direction they desire do not become inconsistent, as this can be fatal to the organization.
I learned from this bitter experience the dangers of easily bending the rules just because there’s been a change in personnel or because of complaints from the field.
Having experienced two different work environments, the conclusion I’ve reached is that the success or failure of a performance evaluation system depends not on the system’s perfection, but on the unwavering determination of the management.
No matter how much external experts put their minds to it and create a highly refined evaluation sheet that directly impacts performance, friction within the organization is inevitable when starting something new.
Complaints such as “the evaluation criteria are too strict” or “it doesn’t suit the reality of our store” almost always erupt in the initial stages.
If the manager’s judgment wavers at that moment, those around them will quickly gravitate towards the easier option, and all the efforts made to make things transparent will be wasted.
Even if complaints arise, the key to whether the system can actually function is whether the CEO himself has a strong commitment to “try to stick to the established rules a few times” and “absolutely adhere to the operational schedule.”
Implementing a performance evaluation system is extremely difficult, and results don’t appear immediately.
Nevertheless, the question is whether you can take that first step with a strong determination to improve the company through this system.
That’s what’s being tested, isn’t it?