Research Project

Khaled: We will start with a simple introduction about yourself, if you would like to mention your name or what you would like to mention, i.e., position, what position and how much you served in the company and so on

Abu Ali: My name is M-S. Approximately this year; I will complete twenty-five years of service with the Saudi Electricity Company. The job title I am currently occupying is an obstetrics specialist. I mean, during the years that I worked, I worked in several places as the head of the maintenance department, the head of the technical support department at the Dammam power station affiliated I have the management of the gas stations affiliated with the generation activity, and currently I am affiliated with the management of the deer generation station under the title of an obstetrician.

Khaled: God willing, God bless the whole life, God willing.

Abu Ali: God bless you.

Khaled: We have simple questions that you can answer comfortably. The first question is, in your opinion, why was the performance appraisal system developed in companies and organizations?

Abu Ali: The performance appraisal system is a necessary thing. In my opinion, it is a necessary thing. An important thing in all companies in all sectors. It is important to classify the level of employees or affiliates that you have, because at the end of each year or the end of each administrative period, you must have an evaluation and assessment of the performance levels of employees. Or the employees or superintendents that you must distribute the rewards that you can estimate for them. Those who deserve the most. An important thing is necessary for all sectors, all institutions.

Khaled: Let us go to the second question. What are the characteristics of a fair evaluation system, in your view, or the mechanism that makes it a fair system?

Abu Ali: The most important feature or the most important presumed need in the system is inclusiveness. You are the evaluation. The evaluation is when an employee is evaluated. His evaluation is in all respects. It means from performance, the level of performance, the level of achievement, the level of his adherence to safety, the level of his adherence to attendance and departure, the level of his dealings with other employees, his dealings with his superiors, the level of his adherence to the regulations. You impose on him as an employer, meaning in all respects, the most important thing is that he be understanding so that he is fair. I mean, you cannot evaluate an employee and give him, for example, an average or high evaluation based on God that his departure, his attendance, and his departure during the working hours is disciplined in it, but his productivity at work is low or another employee His productivity at work is very high, but his adherence to safety is less than the others. The evaluation must be comprehensive for all important aspects in the evaluation, safety, performance, attendance, discipline, dealing and even ethics.

Khaled: Well, what are the specifications of an effective and efficient performance appraisal system that serves, motivates, and raises employee productivity?

Abu Ali: It is any system that ended as an employer that you feel that the employee is satisfied with, meaning that if the return to the employee is remunerative, the material return is the return of material and moral appreciation. You will know if this system of yours is satisfactory or not. Always ask the employees for feedback about their satisfaction with what you are sitting. You give them salaries, allowances, allowances, increases. Sitting giving to their employees, try to make a comparison and see if what you give to your employees is rewarding or not and see the feedback from your employees if it is satisfactory for them or not.

Khaled: I mean, rewarding and so?

Abu Ali: By God, I see for me the big companies in the market, the one in the Kingdom market, for example, I see It is my comprehension I mean, it is rewarding. Remunerative, even if it is not in the eyes of the employees, it is rewarding in the general majority, it is rewarding, because if you compare it with each other, you will find differences in it, this is more than this, but in general and in the general average, the bonuses are rewarding, but it always means, by the popular proverb, it says purpose, satisfaction People are very unaware, and this is an impossible reality. You can make everyone 100% satisfied. There must be differences.

Khaled: As for the method used in your assessment, how is it done and how do you see it?

Abu Ali: You mean the way I evaluate how do my superiors evaluate me?

Khaled: How do they evaluate you? How do you mean?

Abu Ali: I feel what I feel. I mean, my superiors rate me according to my county first during the year. What did I accomplish in the department, in the administration, or in the department in which I worked? Every employee has an achievement that must be accomplished at the beginning of each year. Evaluation basis based on appraising an employee correctly, it is necessary that at the beginning of the year he has a plan, and at the end of the year you check and evaluate this plan. Was it implemented or not? It was implemented in an excellent way, in a good way, in a bad way. At the beginning, you must have a plan, and this is the role of the heads. Indeed, when the plans are prepared, the right of the employees is clear. And it will be agreed upon between the boss and the employee. I am staying on an executive level for the items that were put in my plan in addition to things in addition to this plan. For example, the administration asked me to follow up on an emergency work project, for example, it asked me to follow up on a work mission in another area. It asked me to help and participate in it. In it everything is the plan in addition to the emergency things that happen, these are the issues on which I was evaluated. I mean, in addition to that, the administration may look at or set criteria for evaluation. Look at this employee, how much experience he has from years of experience. What did he also take in his evaluations in the past years? Real things that interfere with the main issue in the evaluation, which is your achievement of the deed in the year, what you obtained in the past year, the years of experience and your association with others, as well as the percentages of the distribution or the percentage approved by the administration for the distribution of evaluation percentages. This is the ratio distribution.

Sometimes I understand that the administration looks at me as an employee with excellent discretion, but it is possible that you cannot give me an excellent evaluation because the percentage is limited. So, if you have ten employees, 4 or 5 of them are excellent, pass it once, but the system tells you not to give excellent to the two you sign. Confusion then, so you must add other factors, as if you go back to previous years. This is what got an excellent grade last year, and this year I am still excellent. Is there a chance that if someone is excellent, also with me, he takes the excellent? Or some circumvention, I mean, on the general law that happens by the administrations. I mean, now I can mention details. We can go into the article for a long time. I don't want to be too long for you, but I'm trying as much as I can to give you.

Khaled: You don't have a problem with lengthening.

Abu Ali: Let's say development. Staff development is a binding thing, even if it is not related. As a result, it is related. I mean, I am sitting trying before I give the answer to understand exactly the wording of the question. If you set criteria for evaluation and criteria for development, you will not be able to appreciate or develop, and you as a business owner as responsible for management or for the company on behalf of the sector or any organizational unit must work. And assessing their needs and evaluating their performance to explain to them the appropriate development plans. In short, it is necessary to evaluate based on development.

Khaled: I mean, can I, for example, evaluate people’s evaluation of this, for example, this is excellent, this is average, this is poor, based on that, I can see the development plan like this.

Abu Ali: Well, done, well done, why is this employee his evaluation was good, or his evaluation was bad? If I know the reason in the coming years, I will put training and development plans for him until he rises or raises his level or raises his level until he becomes from bad to good to excellent, and this is a real role in the company Saudi Electricity had, in previous years, an effective role for HR Human Recourses, which happened in previous years in the Saudi Electricity Company. Is this role or a large part of this role instead of what the HR could have assumed. I give this role to the directors of departments or departments to bear this responsibility and it seems I mean, the departments did not play the sufficient role that the HR was as a senior management or as a broader department that cares about it, which has a very big role for the departments now in that they care about the appreciation and development of their employees. They must know the needs of their employees to develop them and thus raise their level of performance.

Khaled: Did the system help you, that you understood it as a person, the needs you need, such as development?

Abu Ali: Definitely, for sure, because if I know my weaknesses, or I know what is required, I should do so that I can strengthen the weaknesses. I need to strengthen myself in the English language, in some technical respects, in some skills. I can develop any weaknesses that I have identified in my behavior, I can develop it through training, rehabilitation, and courses.

Khaled: Regarding an issue, to what degree do you think it helped you in strengthening effective communication with the supervisor and management?

Abu Ali: It is certain that the evaluation or development process takes place between the supervisor and the employee, because in the end, whoever evaluates the employee is the employee whose supervisor is higher than him, his manager, the head of his department, so there must be real communication in it, which means giving and receiving, evaluation, agreement on the development plan, knowledge of points Weakness on the part of the supervisor and on the part of the employee himself, so certainly 100% must be communication. It means that it is impossible for you to accept as an employee that your supervisor gives you an evaluation without discussing it with you through correspondence through a face-to-face meeting through any means of communication. Feedback must be taken and given and something data exchanged. very important

Khaled: As for the performance appraisal, to what degree do you think it is fair to you, and why?

Abu Ali: The level of performance appraisal. Here is the point. It is the method or most of the employees link it to the financial return. If it were me, I mean even my self-evaluation, I think that I did not perform the required level, but my boss and the company gave me a very high rating. It is fair to me, I mean, and this is our nature as human beings or as employees, because we came to work in companies and institutions for the sake of the financial return for the sake of the salary and the increase that comes on the salary, but if I felt that it is the financial return, this is what is rewarding for me, meaning that it does not meet my needs Neither my aspirations nor my ambition will automatically say: No, this evaluation system is not fair or rewarding for me. This is the financial return. For example, the percentage available, for example, by the senior management, is it possible that when I look at my development plan and be convinced of it, when I look at my evaluation and be convinced of it, regardless of the financial return, it is possible that the convictions increase among the employees.

Khaled: But for you, do you see it as fair?

Abu Ali: I see that I really see that I mean, I will not tell you 100%, but through I mean 25 years in which I worked at least 10 or 15 years of my evaluations were fair for me, I mean, the tens of years that the employee works must come to you 3 4 5 years you don't get your right that you think you deserve, so no one tells you that you are 100% satisfied with 50, 90, 70, 60, but it's good that someone tells you that I'm satisfied with 60 70%, for me it's 60 70% satisfied performance assessments

Khaled: To what degree did the performance appraisal system help you understand your strengths and weaknesses?

Abu Ali: The answer to this question is related or may be repeated from the previous questions. If the evaluation system is an effective system, identify the system of my weaknesses, then I will surely understand.

Khaled: I don't speak in general; I talk about you as your person, I mean as your person.

Abu Ali: As a person, in fact, I could touch it in recent years, maybe the first 5-10 years, because I am new in the company, so there were many points that the supervisor could mention to me. You need to develop in such and such, but after collecting years of work and years of experience, a person becomes many things. Those who are familiar with it feel that the field of development is narrowing, which means that there is no greater need for development. I mean, imagine that you are an employee of yours who has been 5 years old, and another employee in the company has worked for 25 years. The field of development for an employee who has worked for 5 years is much greater than the field of someone who has worked for 25 years, because he is the one who has worked for 25 years. If you develop him, you teach him to train him, so that he has taken enough experience that makes him disciplined, and he has the experience, and he has the knowledge.

Khaled: Of course, there was a question related to the answer. I hope that you answered it. He tells you that he talks about the development plan and your career path. I mean, to what degree did the system help you understand your development plan from the beginning when you entered the company until now? Do you see that?

Abu Ali: Of course

Khaled: Did you see your path in your development plan now?

Abu Ali: Come on, the development plan means that it is clear, as we said in the previous point. It will be clear at the beginning of the years after that. After 15, 20, 25, 20 years, the employee’s path will be more like it being clear, in addition to the employee’s ability to move from one path to another if it is not. It was if the paths were, especially when the paths were convergent, he could move from one path to another, but the importance is at the beginning of defining the path and defining the plan, and the development plan is effective for you in determining the path and is important at the beginning of the years of service.

Khaled: And for you as your person?

Abu Ali: I see that it was average, I mean, it was not very excellent in the way that one aspires to, but it was let's say average, I mean average, let's say average to above average.

Khaled: He tells you to what degree do you see the work system, the work system?!! Why did the performance appraisal system help you, as a person, with motivation and production at work?

Abu Ali: Of course, it varies from stage to stage, from year to year. Some years, I really feel that this evaluation system motivated me and gave me more impetus to try. Some years really passed, and I feel that the evaluation system really did not give me that incentive to try. Greater effort means more creativity or more giving, they vary from year to year, and if you ask me about the general average over the years, we can say that it is in the average or that the system is rewarding.

Khaled: So, you see that it varied between such and such years.

Abu Ali: Yes, I see that it is uneven in what it is at the pace of unity, and I think it is impossible to find an employee who is praised in this performance system over a period of 10 or 20 years, and you will not also find an employee who disparages him because if you fulfill the conditions, the conditions of the laws and the work, I mean The Rules and the Regulation of the company's work laws must be that you will get in the years to come and get rewarding reviews

Khaled: He also tells you to what extent do you see that the rewards associated with the performance appraisal system have an impact on distributing the performance appraisal fairly and equitably within the organization?

Abu Ali: This is a fact in it. We can talk about it in a way or let us say more honestly. It means reality, and this is what many employees used to feel about. It is the system of rewards and the distribution of rewards. It is not a fair system, meaning that there is equality in the distribution of rewards between managers in the upper administrative layers. And the managers or employees, I mean those at the lower administrative levels or the lower functional levels, who think that the company can work more and more to develop this system or this ratio so that it is fairer. The current situation can be expressed as not satisfactory or not fair or not fair for the employees. It is rewarding and it is not fair in the distribution of rewards, double salaries, excellence salaries, bonuses, for example, the company needs to be reconsidered for years, and there is a lot of talk on this point that incentives and bonuses, specifically double salaries, Excellence Allowance salaries, this needs to be re-distributed to employees.

Khaled: Can I formulate the question for you in a second way? I mean, tell you that these rewards are related to the same performance evaluations. Does it have an effect? For example, as presidents, I see the rewards that I want to give to a specific person or something. God willing, you get the idea.

Abu Ali: To a large extent, I expect that the idea has reached a large extent, when you talk about allowances or allowances for bonuses.

Khaled: As for the distribution of evaluation, I mean, rewards are related to the distribution of evaluation.

Abu Ali: This is a problem with the evaluation. If the evaluation is correct or fair, we are talking about the evaluation being fair. Let me say now that the evaluation is fair. This employee, employee A, is excellent and got an excellent evaluation, employee B is very good, he got a very good evaluation, and employee C For example, he is bad in his performance and got an acceptable evaluation. What I understood from the question is that the reward pension he gets is a, for example, because he is excellent. Can you give him a double salary or give him an increase in salary by a certain percentage? What I understood from the question is this a rewarding percentage for him or not?

Khaled: No, I am talking. Is it a kind of possibility that we will fight or fight over evaluation because of rewarding this?

Abu Ali: This is a good thing if there is competition that will be created among the employees to obtain this allowance. I mean, it is possible if you are an employee and I am an employee, and we compete in performance. It is good, but the problem is that if a management, manager, or supervisor happens, he gives the one who deserves the evaluation. This is the problem here. We competed for the performance of you and I, and the supervisor came and gave an excellent evaluation to a third employee below our level. The problem here is I say the evaluation. This is what is fair.

Khaled: Actually, let's go to the next one to say to what degree do you think that the current performance appraisal system measures the employee's real effort?

Abu Ali: What I think is that the level of the current performance appraisal reflects the performance of the employee in a large percentage through the performance sessions that we see with the employees through it. Of course, there are supposed to be periodic sessions every quarter, every 3 months and then 6 months and 9 months after the end of the year. Performance sessions and an evaluation. I personally do not feel that the supervisors or managers are sitting. Perhaps one of the reasons is that the system has become automatic. The manager puts the evaluation into the system and asks the employee to enter his computer and open his page or website for his evaluation. He responds automatically, but what I think is the employees or the managers try to set the real plans for the employee, and in the light of that evaluation, what is fair can be the conviction of the supervisor and the conviction of the employee that all this effort that can be put in the end. The employee himself tells you that you can overcome the convictions of the employees. He tells you that I am exhausting myself and responds to the supervisor and asks the supervisor to give me such and such and such. In the end, I will take good this year and last year to two or three years ahead. I will go astray, so I will distance myself from this headache in conclusion, you will find a lack of interest, as well as the supervising supervisor telling you that I am exhausting myself and putting together a performance plan and spending time until I discuss with the employee what to write to you about the items that we put in the performance plan. At the end of the tattoo, I will give one excellent and one very good, and 20 I will give them good. I think it means.

Khaled: It's nice to go to the one after him who also tells you what can be changed or modified in the performance appraisal system if you can?

Abu Ali: What can I change in the performance appraisal system? There are many items, but in fact there must be more effort to detail these items. I mean, we can take an example. I am an employee responsible for the project of so-and-so. This project has how many items 1 2 3 4 I want at the end of the year to come to tell me that the project was completed without accidents, for example, there are no items in it More efficient, higher, more quickly, more cleanly, with more evaluation. I mean, I provide more in terms of items. I separate items into the same items. I separate them more. I make them clearer than I make them float. I make them rootless.

Khaled: Assigning each, for example, a specific job path.

Abu Ali: I do not specify and specify.

Khaled: Is it possible to ask a question, of course, the last question, and I expect that it is related to the previous question, but in another way, if the decision is in your hands, what can you add to the performance appraisal system that would raise and stimulate employee productivity?

Abu Ali: I can make the performance appraisal system divided into two or two parts, a section that is related to the return or the allowance for bonuses, and a section that is dedicated to recognition or the moral evaluation of the employee. I can say to the employee that you are on the financial level. An additional salary, you will get a certain increase in the basic salary, for example, and it is possible in it to have a second evaluation, which will be a real evaluation. What is related to bonus allowances, it will be a real evaluation for you. My manager believes that, by God, because of the limited percentage in the increases, it is difficult for the manager to give you excellent, but in fact, my performance is excellent. This motivates me and gives me confidence in myself that next year I will maintain this level and increase it until I get the second evaluation, which will lead me to a rewarding material reward. The problem now is in the system. Performance tells you in general that it is excellent, good, bad, or very good, and considering this, you take an increase in material such and such and an increase in salary like this. But the administration did not give me the financial incentive, it did not give me a bonus, but my manager sat with me once or twice and told me, “No, you are excellent.” He spoke to me in front of the management, and told me, “This employee is excellent.

Khaled: I liked the idea, frankly, but I am talking about it. Can we link moral evaluation to promotions, something far from financial incentives?

Abu Ali: It is possible that if you have an employee, for example, for several years, for example, he spent 5 or ten years, and his evaluation is excellent by his direct supervisor, his real evaluation, or let us call it his actual evaluation. Perhaps this evaluation helps him to get promotions faster, because the evaluation every year has an evaluation of you. Every time you get an increase you get a bonus, but not every year. It is possible every year you get a promotion. For example, you can get a promotion every 5 years. Let's get a promotion. Some go to ten years or less or more until they get a promotion. Your real evaluation can help you in the matter of promotions. Or it is possible that today we talked about dividing the assessment into two parts, a part related to the material aspect and a moral part. We call it a promotional assessment.