Employee Performance Appraisal
Employee Performance Appraisal, also called employee appraisal, Performance Review, or just performance appraisal is a method by which the job performance of an employee is evaluated typically by the corresponding manager or supervisor. Generally, this appraisal is evaluated in terms of quality, quantity, cost and time. Performance appraisal is thus a part of guiding and managing career development.
It is the process of obtaining, analyzing, and recording information about the relative worth of an employee to the organization. Performance appraisal is an analysis of an employee’s successes and failures, personal strengths and weaknesses, and suitability for promotion or further training. It is also the judgment of an employee’s performance in a job based on considerations other than productivity alone.
Generally, the aims of a performance appraisal are to: give employees feedback on performance; identify employee training needs, document criteria used to allocate organizational rewards; form a basis for personnel decisions like salary increases, promotions, disciplinary actions, bonuses, etc.; provide the opportunity for organizational diagnosis and development; facilitate communication between employee and administration; validate selection techniques and human resource policies to meet federal Equal Employment Opportunity requirements.; and to improve performance through counseling, coaching and development. Thus it is seen that performance appraisal is not just two words, it is something that is very important for the growth and well being of an organization, as employees are the backbone of any organization in the first place.
Now a performance appraisal may be approached in many ways. A common approach to assessing performance is to use a numerical or scalar rating system wherein managers are asked to score an individual against a number of objectives/attributes. In some companies, employees receive assessments from their manager, peers, subordinates, and customers, while also performing a self assessment.
This is known as a 360-degree appraisal and forms good communication patterns. The most popular methods used in the performance appraisal process include: management by objectives, which is a process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they are in the organization; 360-degree appraisal, where the feedback for the employee comes from various sources, like customers, suppliers, stakeholders, thus enabling a “360 degree”, or a full circle of sources; and behavioral observation scales, where behavior of an employee is taken into consideration.
Another method of performing performance appraisal that is used commonly by businesses is by using trait-based systems. In trait-based systems, factors like integrity and conscientiousness are taken into consideration. In essence, the trait-based systems are, as the name suggests, systems that take into consideration the traits, or the personality signs of an employee. Now the disadvantages of assessing an employee based on traits are many, and these systems have been proven by scientific literature to be ineffective as well. The two main reasons why trait-based systems are not recommended are: first, the personal behavioral traits of an employee do not represent his working capability at all. An employee may be silent, to himself, without socializing, but that does not make him a bad worker.
In fact, he may be one of the best workers in the organization. Thus this is a main reason why trait-based systems are not recommended. Another reason is that trait-based systems, having vague sources of information, tend to be influenced more by office politics. That is to say, if a particular manager does not like an employee for some reason, chances are well that he will review the employee as being bad, though the employee is not. Now there is no one who will question the authority of this review, because the manager is the boss. SO this is another main reason why trait-based systems are not recommended. They are, however, being used quite commonly.
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