Move over annual appraisals! Snapdeal to evaluate employees every 4 months

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Move over annual appraisals! Snapdeal to evaluate employees every 4 months
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Fast growth path with quickly changing priorities and challenges are making it a year too long to evaluate an employee. Ecommerce major Snapdeal will start annual employee appraisals with trimester reviews instead of annual evaluation, says a news report by The Economic Times.

This would require 5,000-odd employees at the Delhi-based ecommerce company to go through performance appraisals and goal-setting every four months, in line with Snapdeal's own way of fixing its business targets.

"We follow a trimester-based approach to business planning and it is almost imperative for us to align our people to that," Saurabh Nigam, vice president, human resources told the ET.
The performance assessment for the first trimester, that is April-July, will be carried out by mid-August. The new system is based also on employee feedback. It is aimed at frequent engagement with staff and retention of high-potential employees in a markwhere managing expectation of a young staff is key to keep attrition under check, says the news report.

At Snapdeal, the average age of employees is 26. "The pace at which the ecommerce industry is growing, a year is too long a time-frame to review performance and set goals,"D Rajiv Krishnan, partner, advisory services and leader, people and organisation, at consultancy firm EY told the financial daily. They have to do it rapidly, accurately and frequently."
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At the end of every trimester, there will be monetary and non-monetary rewards for employees based on the assessment, while the main salary hikes will continue to be at the end of the fiscal year. Snapdeal follows an April-March financial year. Global major Amazon follows an annual appraisal system, while local rivals Flipkart and Jabong have a bi-annual format.

Under the new system, Snapdeal will set organisational goals at the beginning of the trimester. Every functional head will have to determine his or her targets and link them to the organisational goals.