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Performance Appraisal is the process of assessing the performance of an employee within a given time period by a Manager or supervisor. It helps in measuring the exact performance of the employee, his strengths and weaknesses and the required improvements.
The Manager or supervisor who is going to perform appraisal should be well aware of the working conditions of the organization, organizational goals and the employees whose performance needs to be reviewed. New managers should not be given this task. Every company has a set of norms and conditions which should be followed. The person who is going to do Performance Appraisal should know the rules and regulations. He should bear in mind that it is being done for improving the performance of employees and in turn the overall performance of the organization. Individual data of employees is collected over a period of one year. Employees performance is reviewed every two to three months. The supervisor talks to the employees and lets him know how close he is to his goal and in what areas he needs improvements. Training sessions are conducted for employees who lack some knowledge or for those whose performances are not up to the mark.
Managers asks various questions to the employees for reviewing their performance. They should try to keep the employee cool and calm and conduct a bit informal meeting rather than a formal one. Until and unless the employee opens up its useless performing an appraisal and expecting him to better his performance. Managers should try and find out reasons for employees bad performance. Merely reviewing a problem will not help but the problem needs to be addressed at the grass root level or its useless. Employees performance can change over a period of time so past data should be reviewed but should not be given much consideration.
Most effective appraisal system is 360 degrees approach in which data is collected from employees himself, his peers, customers and seniors. This is the best method because when everyone reviews a persons performance we get an appropriate figure for calculation and the spectrum for review increases. Managers should review the performance and give feed backs. The feedback should not be negative. It should be positive and encouraging. The reason behind appraisal is to enhance the performance of an employee and not to lower his morale. Managers should consider every point from the start and not a particular negative behavior or incident while writing review. He should also not hold any personal grudges with the employee. He should give an unbiased report concentrating totally on an employees overall performance in the organization.
Performance appraisal is carried out so that an employee works with full devotion and is committed to his work. He does not shows a laid back attitude and get irregular. It should increase employees efficiency and his commitment towards work. Regular review of performance is very useful because it makes the organization aware of employees who are poor or non performers and are not improving. These employees need to be fired or should not be given a pay hike. Good performers move up the ladder and acquire respectable positions in the organization thus leading to the profitability in the long run.
Performance Appraisal is very important aspect for reviewing. Nowadays almost each and every company follows it.