PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL/ EVALUATION

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL/ EVALUATION

What is Performance Appraisal?
A performance appraisal is a review and discussion of an employee's performance of assigned duties and responsibilities. The appraisal is based on results obtained by the employee in his/her job, not on the employee's personality characteristics. The appraisal measures skills and accomplishments with reasonable accuracy and uniformity. It provides a way to help identify areas for performance enhancement and to help promote professional growth. It should not, however, be considered the supervisor's only communication tool. Open lines of communication throughout the year help to make effective working relationships.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL/ EVALUATION

Why Appraise Performance?
Periodic reviews help supervisors gain a better understanding of each employee's abilities. The goal of the review process is to recognize achievement, to evaluate job progress, and then to design training for the further development of skills and strengths. A careful review will stimulate employees interest and improve job performance.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS
Motivation and Satisfaction
Performance appraisal provides employees with recognition for their work efforts. The power of social recognition as an incentive has been long noted. In fact, there is evidence that human beings will even prefer negative recognition in preference to no recognition at all.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS
Training and Development
Performance appraisal offers an excellent opportunity perhaps the best that will ever occur - for a supervisor and subordinate to recognize and agree upon individual training and development needs. Performance appraisal can make the need for training more pressing and relevant by linking it clearly to performance outcomes and future career aspirations.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS
Recruitment and Induction
Appraisal data can be used to monitor the success of the organization's recruitment and induction practices. For example, how well are the employees performing who were hired in the past two years? Appraisal data can also be used to monitor the effectiveness of changes in recruitment strategies. By following the yearly data related to new hires (and given sufficient numbers on which to base the analysis) it is possible to assess whether the general quality of the workforce is improving, staying steady, or declining.

POTENTIAL COMPLICATIONS
Negative perceptions
Quite often, individuals have negative perceptions of PAs. Receiving and/or the anticipation of receiving a PA can be uncomfortable and distressful and potentially cause tension between supervisors and subordinates

POTENTIAL COMPLICATIONS
Errors
PAs should provide accurate and relevant ratings of an employees performance as compared to preestablished criteria (i.e. organizational expectations).Nevertheless, supervisors will sometimes rate employees more favorably than that of their true performance in order to please the employees and avoid conflict. Inflated ratings are a common malady associated with formal" PA

POTENTIAL COMPLICATIONS
Legal issues
when PAs are not carried out appropriately, legal issues could result that place the organization at risk. PAs are used in organizational disciplinary programs as well as for promotional decisions within the organization.The improper application and utilization of PAs can affect employees negatively and lead to legal action against the organization.

POTENTIAL COMPLICATIONS
Performance goals
Performance goals and PA systems are often used in association. Negative outcomes concerning the organizations can result when goals are overly challenging or overemphasized to the extent of affecting ethics, legal requirements, or quality. Moreover, challenging performance goals can impede on employees abilities to acquire necessary knowledge and skills. Especially in the early stages of training, it would be more beneficial to instruct employees on outcome goals than on performance goals.