It’s that time of the year again- when we jot down all our accomplishments and hope to get recognition and preferably, a salary hike.
Yes, we are talking about Performance Appraisals.
Performance review is crucial for all working professionals as it evaluates their productivity and performance throughout the year, offering insights into their strengths and weaknesses.
No wonder that as per a survey done by Naukri.com, 68% of people believe that performance appraisals play a huge role in their career growth.
If you are new to all this and are trying to grasp the nitty-gritty of performance appraisals, this blog is for you!
Read this article to learn about performance appraisals- from its objective and types of performance appraisals to the advantages of performance reviews.
Let us start by understanding...
Performance appraisal- Meaning
Performance appraisal is the process of assessing an employee’s performance based on the goals and business objectives of the company to reward efforts and provide feedback.
During a performance review, managers evaluate their employees based on their skills, productivity, ownership, initiative, and goal achievement for the year.
This assessment helps organizations make informed decisions regarding promotions, bonuses, salary increments, and R&R (Rewards & Recognition).
Performance appraisals are usually an annual process that enables supervisors with a SWOT analysis of their team. This helps them advise growth strategies to upskill, eradicate weaknesses, and build on strengths.
Objectives of performance appraisal?
By now, you must have a basic idea of why we need performance reviews and appraisals. To bring more clarity, here are some objectives of performance appraisals:
- Evaluate employee performance over a period of time (Usually annually)
- Review performance to provide constructive feedback
- Set goals for the upcoming year
- Identify strengths and weaknesses
- Find areas of improvement and training avenues
- Discuss career aspirations and career growth plans with your manager
- Spot trends in employee performance
- Draw a career map to ensure a positive learning
- Ensure that the employee goals align with the business needs
What are the types of performance appraisals?
While each company has its method of evaluation, most companies follow these performance appraisal methods:
Self-appraisal
It all begins here! Self-appraisal, also called self-assessment, is your chance to shine. Here, you can record your achievements from the past year, assess your growth, and discuss your efforts.
It brings clarity to your supervisors about your annual performance and gives them a basis to initiate your appraisal process.
Also read: How to Write a Self-Appraisal?
Annual performance review
The most common type of performance appraisal, this method evaluates employee performance every year. The steps followed here are:
- Goal setting
- Self-appraisal
- The formal meeting for performance review by managers
- Define ratings and benefits
- Goal setting for the next year. The ratings often range from poor to excellent.
360-Degree Feedback
True to the name, this appraisal process is based on the feedback of your team, colleagues, subordinates, and supervisors. It helps your supervisors evaluate your performance holistically and gives an insight into your professionalism.
MBO
MBO, or Management by Objectives is the type of appraisal where supervisors set specific and measurable goals to be achieved over some time. In this appraisal process, employee performance is evaluated based on the completion of goals.
Critical Incident Technique
This appraisal is incident specific, contrary to other appraisal methods, where achievement is evaluated over a set time. Critical Incident Technique focuses on specific incidents as the basis for evaluating the overall performance of an employee.
Benefits of performance appraisals
Performance appraisals require a lot of effort, but why is it important? Here are some advantages of performance appraisals:
- Goal setting: one of the most crucial benefits of performance appraisal is goal setting. Appraisal processes help employees and employers assess performance and identify weak areas that need improvement.
- Career growth: Appraisals can help you identify areas of improvement and highlight your weaknesses, making it easy to pursue the required training. It eases upskilling and training efforts, enabling overall career growth.
- Feedback: Working without feedback is fruitless since there will be no accountability or responsibility. Timely and constructive criticism can help you with the scope of improvement and skill development, enabling overall career growth
- Self-awareness: Performance appraisals can help you gauge your strengths and weaknesses, increase self-awareness and make career growth simpler! It identifies areas of improvement, giving you direction to upskill and evolve in a structured manner.
- Better job satisfaction: There is no better feeling than being recognized for your hard work; performance appraisals provide the perfect opportunity for this. Knowing your efforts are being recognized and rewarded increases motivation and is more likely to make you motivated and happy in your job.
Process of performance appraisal
After reading all about performance appraisals, let us take a look at the process involved.
1. Goal setting
The first step is to define goals for the upcoming review period. Setting performance goals and clear expectations gives your supervisors a benchmark to measure progress and achievements and helps you with a clear direction of work.
2. Measuring performance
Throughout the review period, your supervisor will monitor your progress to identify your strengths and weaknesses, record your accomplishments and share feedback. In this stage, your job is to maintain a progress report.
Include all tasks you have accomplished or struggled with in this period, skills developed, special projects, and additional work.
3. Self-appraisal
At this stage, evaluate your progress and give yourself a rating. Assess this rating against the standards set during the goal setting. Make sure you carry out self-appraisal fairly and honestly; justify the rating you are giving yourself with a list of projects and their impact.
4. Discussion
Discussion is where reality checks happen. Self-appraisal is a perspective of your performance, but what your supervisor thinks is crucial too. During these discussions, you can put forth your opinion, learn what they think and discuss strengths and areas of improvement with your supervisor. You can also use this window to justify your review and bridge any difference of opinion.
5. Performance appraisal
After all the hard work in the first four steps, it is time for the final result! Here, your supervisor will give you a final rating based on which you will get a salary hike, promotion, incentives, perks, etc. The rating, along with the discussion, will also pave the way to help you develop new skills and pursue relevant training opportunities.
Should you take performance appraisals seriously?
Yes! Performance appraisals are significant for all employees for many reasons, the most crucial being the formal and structured way of sharing constructive feedback and recognition.
Performance appraisals can help you identify your strengths and weak spots. Also, it takes away the suspense of right or wrong, making it easier for you to understand what to do and meet expectations.
In the big picture, performance appraisals are significant for overall career growth since they provide clarity and help you accomplish challenging goals that contribute to skill development and career advancement.
Above all, performance appraisals influence decisions about salary hikes, promotions, and other rewards by identifying your contribution to the organization.
While performance appraisals may not always be systematic, they are a crucial tool to improve employee performance, engagement, and career development, making them significant for all employees.
So get ready, and prepare to get the appraisal you have earned!
All the best!
