Appraisal System for Government - Very much possible!

An employee always waits for the annual performance appraisal cycle to complete. The participation from employee & employer is well understood. During each cycle, there is an opportunity for both the parties to spend 1:1 time, discuss the performance over a year, understand the achievements and gaps in expectations; and plan out the goals for the next year. Although many in HR try to de-link the appraisal and compensation; it is an established fact that the performance appraisal has an impact on the compensation for the next year. So, it becomes more important and exciting for employees. Most of the companies now do conduct performance appraisals at a much better frequency, at least twice a year!

On similar lines, I have been thinking that there should be a similar process to set some goals and targets for ministers and members of lower and upper houses at state and federal level at the beginning of the year. And validate the performance at the end of year. Goal-setting could very well be a shared responsibility. For e.g. A minister of a particular department may have its own challenges, and opportunities. Similarly, members of a parliament may have different levels of challenges, possibilities for different constituencies that they represent. So, each employee (minister or member) may set goals for themselves for their area; and finalize it based on discussion with top leadership  bringing in uniformity and in line with the larger goal of the party or government.

It brings in a medium to track how well a minister is doing, provide timely feedback to course correct. Plus, it ensures accountability for the individuals. Future growth of every individual will be driven by talent, and performance in addition to extra-curricular skills.

Now, who should conduct these performance assessments. There could be a third party, who could be tasked to perform this process. My suggestion is for private players to come into existence and offer such services to state level and federal level governments. And can very well be extended to municipal corporations.

In fact governments can set-up a committee similar to Neeti Aayog to exclusively perform Appraisal process.

While doing so, important thing is to ensure transparency and confidentiality. So, there should be regulatory provisions put in place to ensure that the conduct of such committees or private players is always compliant.