Any organization that carries out performance appraisal process does so to ensure that it is able to provide quality service to its customers. Employee performance appraisal process helps the organization to understand which employees are performing well, which employees needs training and what should the organization do to ensure maximum learning for its employees so that they are able to contribute to their best in achieving that organization’s goals.
The first step that is usually carried out in any performance appraisal system is setting up the criteria on which the employees will be evaluated. HR managers and experts sit together to discuss what will be the parameters on which the employees will be graded. These parameters must be in line with the organization’s overall goals and objectives. The standards that are set should be clear, the process should be well established and the parameters should be measurable. Great care should be taken to ensure the process applied to measure qualitative aspects of the employee such as honesty, value, integrity, moral and ethical behavior etc. Once all the standards are set, it is time to communicate them to all the employees what performance appraisal system is going to be followed. The management must make sure that all the employees of the organization are well aware about the processes that will be used to measure their performance. This helps the employees to understand what exactly is expected of them.
There may be different performance appraisal methods that are followed by different organizations but performance appraisal goals remain the same – to measure the work done by the employees in a stipulated period of time, usually one year and use the report for promoting them. Performance appraisals are stressful not just for the employee but for the supervisors and evaluators as well. This is because when it comes to actually measuring the performance of that employee, there are so many criteria that go into actually grading that employee. After the performance appraisal form is filled by the employee, there is a discussion on a one-to-one with the evaluator. Here too the employee’s communication and listening abilities are judged. The focus of this discussion is to give a detailed feedback to the employee who can help them to identify his weakness and improve upon the same. The feedback should be constructive so that it can have an effect on the employee’s future performance. On the part of the evaluator, it requires careful selection process, monitor technique used for measuring performance, keeping their personal bias aside, carrying out the activity in a fair and a just manner.
As a part of the performance evaluation system, the actual performance of the employee is also compared with the desired or the standard performance. The deviation from it tells the evaluator how much the employee needs to improve or how well he or she has done. The last step of any performance appraisal process is to take decisions pertaining to the promotion or demotion of employees, communicate about the learning required, motivating the employees to do better, take corrective actions and improve the overall efficiency. Performance appraisal examples are available in many books and even on the internet where employees can understand the process and learn through the experience of others.