Human Resource (Mis)Management

CoDeC’s Director, Mr KimChoeun, called a staff meeting last weekend. He demonstrated some appalling HRM howlers:
He announced it the day before, and didn’t provide an agenda.
Staff don’t usually work Saturdays or Sundays (except sometimes at community workshops), so there was no consideration for peoples time or personal commitments, and they won’t be given any time back in lieu.
Mr KimChoeun started off by explaining that he wants CoDeC to achieve the new Cambodian NGO Good Practice Standards (a bit like Investors in People or ISO), and proceeded to read the guidelines out to us from his book for the next two hours. There was no discussion with the staff or planning of how it will be done.....
Then the staff had their annual appraisals. Each person was given a short form with some arbitrary criteria to rate, e.g. "rate yourself on timekeeping from 1 to 5". They took 5 minutes to complete this and handed it to their District Coordinator who endorsed it (although there was supposed to be some discussion with the rest of the district team)!! Mr KimChoeun collected them in for checking, and the next day told the staff to redo them as he wanted to see a range of scores and not just all 4’s and 5’s!!! When I think of the appraisal industry in the UK, and all the time, money and energy we invest in training for appraisers and appraisees....!!!!!! In some ways, I was quite taken with the simplicity of this appraisal "model", and CoDeC can at least mark off the box that says it has staff appraisal, but I think there will have to be changes next year!
Next, the staff were asked to write their job descriptions on another form. They apparently do this every year, and were given only 15 minutes to complete the forms, with no opportunity for reflection, discussion, reference to their previous job description or guidance. In the UK, it is the employer who decides what the purpose and responsibilities of each job is, so that the staff member knows what is expected of them. The CoDeC way is completely off-track!
I was quite frustrated at this meeting, as I do know about HRM and I could have helped Mr KimChoeun to do things better. However, he didn’t discuss his agenda with me in advance, he had pre-printed the forms and I couldn’t let him "lose face" in front of the staff by criticising his efforts at the meeting. Also, I had no translator to help me to communicate, as Tha was recovering from his motorbike accident. So....... I will have to make do with giving him feedback as soon as an opportunity arises (which may not be for weeks), and suggesting that we have a preparatory meeting prior to next year’s meeting! One good thing (for me) was that we sat at a table for most of the two days. We usually sit on the floor, so I was relieved from getting backache!