3 Ways to Make Your Year-End Assessments Like the Oscars

My friends know that I’m a tad obsessed about all things entertainment.  I subscribe to the quasi-legitimate People and Us, and the very legitimate Entertainment Weekly. So come Academy Award time, like this weekend, I’m in my element.  It got me thinking, why don’t managers assess and reward people like the Oscars do?

Let’s face it, just like a movie, it takes a team of people to get anything done in the business world. Whether you’re selling a product, designing a software program, running a call center, or auditing a company, no one does it alone.  But when it comes to performance assessments and corresponding raises and bonuses, it’s almost always done on an individual basis.  If you started looking at results like the Academy does, here’s what it might look like:

·      You have a best “movie” award.  You’d recognize the sale, program, or whatever team accomplishment that contributed the most to the success of the group/region during the year. That way, everyone on the team gets some recognition for their hard work. You would have maybe the top three successes and you might even ask the group to vote.  That way you’d get a better sense of what others see you might have missed.

·      You have a best actor/actress award.   For this you would recognize the individual who contributed the most to the group success. This person may or may not have been on the winning team noted above. Just like the best actor isn’t always part of the best movie, some individual performances can get overlooked when they aren’t associated with a highly visible win.  This is a great way to show that you’ve noticed someone’s efforts, hard work and drive.  Of course, the person may also be part of the best “movie” team as well.

·      You have a best technical award.  This would be given to the person whose support was instrumental in most of the successes for the year. This would often be an administrative or analyst position that is often overlooked but is a critical member of a team.  Let’s face it, without these people, nothing happens. Again, for this award, you might want to nominate your top three choices and let the team vote.  How meaningful would it be to have this person be recognized by the people they work with every day.  Kind of like the People’s choice awards.

You don’t have to be a lover of movies to see the value in recognizing that your success depends on much more than one or two top performers.  Looking at year-end results this way would also force you to see talented people that might otherwise get overlooked and will help with your retention.  It goes without saying that you can have some serious fun with it.