Performance appraisal of officers in government: a case study of the Indian railways

Abstract

Performance appraisal is vital to the health of any organization. Various details of human resource development activities like manpower planning, selection and recruitment, training and deployment, compensation and career development all revolve around performance appraisal. Therefore if it were not accorded due significance the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization would suffer. The importance of performance appraisal in government in general and the railways in specific cannot be overemphasized. The role of the government is swiftly and surely changing from 'prime entrepreneur' to 'an enabler and regulator' of private entrepreneurship. The Railways have lost their monopoly hold over transportation services and are facing increasing competition by the day! Today is not like yesterday and tomorrow will not be like today! It is in this context that performance appraisal of railway officers who have now to compete with private entrepreneurs assumes new significance. Given the rapidly evolving challenges of public management and service provision facing the railways, the objectives of performance appraisal need to be widened in order to respond to the present day needs of governance. There is therefore an urgent need for a paradigm shift in the very philosophy of appraisal. This thesis attempts to review the present system of appraisal through the annual Confidential Report. It seeks to examine the functions of the ACR system as a tool for -work planning, training and placement, reward and recognition, feedback and counselling and strengthening governance. This is sought to be done by framing issues for validation through a series of in depth interviews with railway officers at different levels. The thesis also attempts to secure a variance m perception based on organizational climate, department, seniority, gender and potential to rise in service. On the basis of the survey made the paper brings out the perceived weaknesses in the system and the need to address the same through a combination of illustrative case studies and simple statistics. Thereafter, an attempt is made to make policy recommendations for changes in the system, the idea being to transform the system of ACR from a negative tool to a positive one for human resource development. In this process a proposal for redesigning of the appraisal format is also made.