Is the employee appraisal required by law?

A common piece of feedback from managers and employees is that they find the employee appraisal of little use, and at times downright uncomfortable. A box-ticking exercise for many – so it's no wonder people ask themselves whether this is something they can be bothered to spend time on. A few keystrokes in Google about “is the employee appraisal required by law” quickly become the next step.

Is a legally required employee appraisal a need in itself?

Even a skilled and well-prepared manager can face challenges in dialogue with their employees. Getting honest answers about what motivates each person and triggers good job performance, and how it feels to be looked after, is not the easiest task for a manager. A complicating factor is that our experience of our job situation has a short shelf life.

• Read: We all want good performance

There are also reports of poor follow-up and expectations that are not met. This can easily lead an employee to go from being highly engaged to unmotivated, resulting in turnover, sickness absence, corridor talk, etc. Despite this, considerable resources are put into employee appraisals in Norwegian companies and organisations. Why? Probably because there is an understanding that dialogue with employees is needed that goes beyond the daily dialogue about tasks. Operations and daily challenges will always take up space at the expense of development unless clear priorities are made.

It can be smart to think of the employee appraisal as a strategy conversation at the individual level, where employee and manager together focus on what it takes for the employee to be able to do their best as independently as possible, and in line with the organisation's needs. If you find a method that achieves this, you are also one step away from the feeling that the employee appraisal is something required by law.

• Read: The employee appraisal: Creating value through dialogue

What does the Working Environment Act say?

The employee appraisal is not directly required by law, but the Norwegian Working Environment Act has an overarching purpose that each organisation must find a sound way of fulfilling – to ensure a working environment that provides a basis for a health-promoting and meaningful work situation that offers full protection against physical and mental harm.

– In addition, there are clear guidelines in Sections 4-2 and 4-3 on requirements for adaptation, participation, development and the psychosocial working environment.

The framework for what we as employers are obliged to look after in order to create good and sustainable workplaces can be briefly summarised as follows:

• Facilitate professional and personal development
• Adapt tasks to each employee
• Ensure varied tasks and contact/communication with others
• Provide opportunities for self-determination, influence and professional responsibility
• Provide sufficient information and training
• Prevent undesirable physical and mental strain and harm

These are wise recommendations that stem from, among other things, research showing that intrinsically motivated employees perform best over time.

The Internal Control Regulations point to the employee appraisal

It is difficult to meet the requirements of the Working Environment Act without facilitating individual dialogue – a dialogue that ensures everyone gets the opportunity to be seen, heard and treated equally. The Internal Control Regulations specify this as follows:

“The organisation must map and describe where hazards or problems for health, the environment and safety may arise in the workplace. This applies to both the physical and the psychosocial working environment. The employee appraisal is a form of mapping to obtain information about conditions in the workplace. There is a requirement to document how the organisation maps risk factors. This means that information from employee appraisals must be documented, and is important for meeting the requirements of the Internal Control Regulations.”

Does management have full responsibility?

It is not possible for the employer alone to take responsibility for developing a healthy and developmental working environment. That is why Section 2-3 of the Working Environment Act regulates the employee's duty to participate:

“Employees shall participate in the design, implementation and follow-up of the undertaking's systematic health, environment and safety work. Employees shall take part in the organised safety and environmental work of the undertaking and shall actively participate in the implementation of measures introduced to create a satisfactory and safe working environment.”

This means that it takes a lot for an employee to be able to refuse to take part in a conversation whose purpose is to fulfil the obligations of the Working Environment Act. On the other hand, it is important that the employer strives to exercise leadership that builds trust, so that the employee feels safe enough to participate in a constructive and open way.

We believe that employee appraisals are one of several good measures for fulfilling the purpose of the law, but the method needs to be rethought. It is not enough for each party to prepare from a general form of questions, which are then gone through question by question, without prioritising what matters to the employee and the role. It is also disproportionately time-consuming. Motivati has specialised in precisely the employee appraisal. The conversation is guided by the Motivation Analysis™, which shows how the employee is doing in their work situation.

• Read: Sceptical about the employee appraisal?

We need concrete and relevant dialogue to build relationships and trust

All change requires motivation, and a manager must therefore get to know each employee's needs and wishes, including which type of leadership suits each person best. Our experience is that it works best when the manager starts from how the employee experiences their own work situation, and this is then aligned through dialogue in light of each person's role and the organisation's needs.