I have sat in glass walled meeting rooms and brainstormed with department heads about the perfect performance metrics. I have built goal setting templates, drafted SMART objectives, and debated endlessly about whether “collaboration” should be a measurable KPI or just a soft skill checkmark. I’ve helped define leadership competencies, created rating scales that looked both fair and firm, and ensured that every line manager had a checklist before clicking 'Submit' on an appraisal.

In short, I’ve designed over 300 appraisal forms in the last decade. And yet, not once has anyone asked me, “How do you think you’ve done this year?”

It’s a strange place to be in. HR, after all, has long been the silent architect of performance management. We build the framework, yet we are left out of the measurement. We coach leaders on how to give feedback, but our own feedback, if it exists, floats quietly in inboxes or between the lines of a passing compliment. There is no dashboard that captures the number of emotional crises we defused, or the attrition we quietly prevented through a coffee chat.

We, in HR, don’t produce revenue. We don’t launch products. We don’t negotiate client contracts. Yet we influence all of them. Our impact is undeniable, but it is invisible. How do you rate that?

Sometimes, I wonder what an appraisal for an HR professional would look like. Would it capture the day I held back my own tears while calming a manager who had just lost a parent? Would it acknowledge the months I spent nudging a toxic leader to change, knowing I could not afford to lose him because he delivered results? Would it measure the number of hours I spent creating policies that no one thanked me for, but everyone followed as if they had always existed?

I don’t say this to seek sympathy. I say this because I know I’m not alone. There are hundreds of HR professionals out there especially in India who work behind the scenes of performance cycles but rarely get evaluated with the same clarity or seriousness. We are the authors of rating systems but often the footnotes in their implementation.

In most companies, the HR team is assessed based on general business health like headcount stability, attrition trends, engagement scores. But these metrics are far too removed from individual effort. They offer no real reflection of the human behind the “human resources.”

How do you rate someone who made the onboarding process feel like home for every new hire?
How do you score the HRBP who managed to retain a disillusioned senior manager by offering him space and a sense of meaning?
What’s the performance rating of the recruiter who, though missing targets, helped a nervous fresher believe they were good enough?

There’s a word for this conundrum, it’s the performance paradox of HR.

We are measured for the systems we create, not the humanity we bring to work. We are applauded for the structures we build, not the emotional labour we carry. Somewhere along the way, our function got coded into spreadsheets and policies, losing the personal thread that once defined it.

Maybe that’s why so many in HR feel like background characters in their own success stories. We enable growth, but often feel stagnant. We drive development plans, yet our own careers are left to auto pilot. We push for continuous feedback cultures, but rarely receive any ourselves. And let’s be honest, how many CEOs can articulate how to truly measure HR impact beyond turnover rates or training completion percentages?

HR is supposed to be the soul of an organisation. But if the soul goes unacknowledged, how long before it starts to dim? I’m not asking for applause. I’m asking for awareness. The awareness that HR professionals need recognition, not just for compliance or crisis handling, but for the quiet, consistent, and emotional work they do every day.

If performance management is evolving to be more humane, then HR must not be left out of that evolution. We too deserve feedback that’s rich, thoughtful, and specific. We too need development conversations that don’t start and end with “support the business better.” And maybe, just maybe, we deserve an appraisal form that doesn’t judge us by the policies we created, but by the people we impacted.

So the next time an HR person sits with you to plan the appraisal cycle, ask them, “What would your own performance review look like?” You might be surprised by the answer. Because behind every appraisal system is an HR professional who just wants to be seen not as a resource, but as a human.