How Performance Appraisal can Increase Employee Performance

Performance appraisal is the evaluation of the competence of an employee in relation to the tasks he or she is allocated. This appraisal is based on an employee’s results, rather than the employee’s behavior. The evaluation assesses the proficiencies and accomplishments with balanced precision and consistency. Despite this, supervisors are not advised to use this as their sole instrument of communication, maintaining open lines of interactions throughout the year can assist in developing successful working relations. Employees are entitled to being given considerate and cautious assessments. The practice is also dependent on the readiness of the supervisor to develop a practical and objective review. It also relies on the readiness of the employees to respond to helpful proposals and to cooperate with the supervisor to achieve future ambitions. The performance appraisal assists in identifying areas for performance improvement and also helps to encourage professional development (Keeping, & Levy, 2000).

Performance appraisal helps the supervisors to better comprehend the skills of each of their employees. The goal of the appraisal process is to identify achievements, evaluate job advancement, and use this to plan training for added improvement of skills and building on strong points. A cautious appraisal can motivate the interest of an employee and also enhance their job performance. The appraisal gives the worker, the administrator, and Human Resources a vital, official response system on an annual basis (Keeping, & Levy, 2000). Aligning the performance of workers with the objectives of the organization is a major advantage of strategic Human Resource.

Appraisals ought to motivate staff to improve their performance. For the members of staff who perform efficiently, such appraisals give the supervisors an opportunity to commend their work and create further chance for improvement and development. On the other hand, for struggling members of staff, the appraisal gives the supervisor the chance to create standards of expectations and communicate with the member of staff regarding ways of attaining the set goals. Assessments also help with succession planning, which entails recognition of competent candidates to take up major positions when the staffs holding those posts go to retirement. With tactical and well-planned appraisals, administrators can be able to communicate about the potential they see in a member of staff and plan means of facilitating the proficiency and familiarity essential to work into the available task.

From a strategic point of view, appraisals should offer the company the chance to discover what staff require in terms of support and funds. When a company presents employees with the opportunity to ask questions and table their concerns and proposals, they find out how to better equip them and ensure that they deliver the best performance possible. Company managers should be humble enough and ready to discover what workers need that they currently lack.

Despite the many merits of performance appraisal, there are normally some major biases that can plague the process and one of the frequent forms of biasness is the horns and ring effect (Keeping, & Levy, 2000). This refers to the custom of supervisors holding the belief that a particular employee is naturally competent or incompetent at his work. Such viewpoints are frequently based on individuality clashes and other reasons that do not reveal the actual ob performance. Once the supervisor has settled on a particular perspective regarding a member of staff, that supervisor naturally looks for information to support that perspective, instead of utilizing the data on the employee to make an informed point of view.

An additional possible preconception is the purposeful bias which occurs when a supervisor feels threatened by a member of staff who shows aptitude, disobedience of business instructions or aspiration to obtain a senior level in the organization. There is also self-bias under which if the evaluation discloses bad performance, the worker will continue to perform poorly. Another type of preconception is the appraisal bias and on many occasions, the assessments themselves are inclined toward a particular point. Majority of companies make use of just a single type of review form, but one form seldom applies well to every type of worker. For instance, a form that places emphasis on creativity and interaction permits an individual in marketing to score very well yet a member of staff in production is bound to perform poorly, based merely on the necessities of the different positions.

Performance review helps to increase morale, which is essential in creating a productive workforce. By working with staff to point out the weak areas in their work performance and helping in creating a scheme to work on that weakness, supervisors are setting up a good attitude with staff that can create a constructive feeling toward the business and its goals. This is why placing an emphasis on the positive aspects in the performance evaluation is useful.

Performance assessment can also help the company to decide which employees are suitable for promotion, and which ones are not. These reflections ought to be added to the financial plan of the following. Other performance evaluations may entail the termination of staff, and that can lead to two budgetary allocations. First, the funds that were associated with the terminated staff are returned into the yearly financial plan.

On the other hand, budget considerations set to replace terminated workers have to be taken into account. The company is supposed to decide whether it would be advantageous to increase pay and higher a more experienced applicant, or if appointing a lower paid entry-level worker will improve the strategic objectives of the company (Keeping, & Levy, 2000).

References

Keeping, L. M., & Levy, P. E. (2000). Performance appraisal reactions: Measurement, modeling, and method bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(5), 708.