How to implement remote performance appraisals

[cloud9]

Hi all,

I am working on an HR action plan for a boutique recruitment start-up that will source employees to offshore oil rigs. One of the HR hurdles I've identified will be remotely managing & monitoring the performance of their employees.

I am trying to think of a way that will facilitate an impartial and accurate assessment of employees performance without it becoming overly bureaucratic or requiring excessive communication between rig management and the labour sourcing company.

Offering superior candidates is a fundamental business proposition for this company so monitoring performance will be an integral issue.

I am developing the process to achieve this using a yearly/biannual performance appraisal and was curious if anyone had any ideas/suggestions on how to structure this to ensure consistent and fair reviews are possible without being too cumbersome to conduct.

Thanks for any advice

[Qld IR Consultant]

First off if you manage to implement a viable system may i suggest taking out a trade mark on it and selling it, you would make a fortune!!

All of the systems I have ever implemented have always needed a degree of supervisor/management interaction. Having done quite a few I have tinkered with the idea of it being remote but after doing some modelling I can't see how it would be accurate.

Your in the midst of a difficult challenge, but like i said if you pull it off i think it will be a first....

Good luck!!

[Moz]

Can I just clarify something - are we talking about people who are employed by the recruitment firm and contracted to the rig operator or contracted to another company supplying services on the rig?

[cloud9]

Can I just clarify something - are we talking about people who are employed by the recruitment firm and contracted to the rig operator or contracted to another company supplying services on the rig?

Thats right Moz, the recruitment firm would be contracting their employees to the rig operators.

I suppose they could always use the traditional approach whereby the employee's supervisor conducts the performance review and this is then relayed to the recruitment agency although it seems a bit like Chinese whispers plus I think the agency would also be interested in the employee's feedback regarding the rig - this would be less forthright if the rig operator was managing the process.

[Moz]

I would have thought that only the end customer would be in a position to rate the individual contractor's performance. How could the agency possibly do it if they are not on site?

Certainly if I were the rig operator I wouldn't be interested in how the agency rates the contractor's performance, because I would consider that I would be the only judge of that.

However, getting feedback from the customer does not mean the agency cannot seek the other side of the story from the contractor. But at the end of the day, if the rig operator isn't happy with the performance of an individual it is pointless the agency arguing the toss, they would be better simply trying to fix the problem asap, or managing the contractor out of there and finding a replacement.

There is however another issue which is potentially far more serious than performance, and that is the agency's OH&S obligations. How are they going to manage that?