3 Tips for Writing a Performance Appraisal

How to effectively Write a Performance Appraisal for Your Employees

Within the current struggling economy, businesses are relying on a smaller team to perform the same work as one that had previously been larger.  In that sense, every team member is required to do more work than had been previously expected of them.  Writing a performance appraisal for each may, therefore, seem as though valuable time is being taken away from both the employees and those who are actually creating the report, but it should also be noted that the benefits of this practice can greatly overcome this obvious drawback.

To start, it must be understood that preparing a performance appraisal is done with a much more significant goal in mind than potential promotions, salary increases, or disciplinary action.  Instead, it is an opportunity to create regular communication, while establishing goals that are well outlined and set, and where expectations are clear for the next period before the next report.  For this reason, writing a performance appraisal becomes adequately important that it is worth the time aside from the looming deadlines.

After all, the practice does come with the following important benefits:

·         Team member motivation – through a performance appraisal, you provide each employee with a thorough understanding of the expectations regarding his or her performance.  It allows goals to be set, timelines to be established, progress to be measured and tracked, and the identification of struggles to the achievement of goals to be made.

·         Top performer recognition and compensation – as performance appraisal allows an employee’s progress toward performance goals to be tracked, it also allows a business to identify the individuals who provide the greatest contribution to the overall success of the organization, so that they may be rewarded for this notable effort.

·         Reduction of employee attrition and turnover – since performance appraisal assists employees in achieving greater successes through the clear outlining of their goals for supporting the objectives of the organization, it also encourages retention as a structure of pay-for-performance can be created to appropriately reward those with the best performance.

·         Additional legal protection – performance appraisal is also a form of documentation, which will mean that an individual team member’s performance will have been carefully recorded, so that if it is deemed suitably unsatisfactory, termination can occur with an adequate case to support it.

Tips on How to Write a Performance Appraisal

Now that you understand the benefits of writing a performance appraisal, it is important to understand how to create one effectively.  Use the following tips to help guide you.

1.     Set effective individual goals – team members and managers should use performance appraisal as an opportunity to work together to set goals.  The manager can educate departmental or organizational objectives to the team member, who can then use that information to work with the manager to set goals that will be achievable and that will properly align with those of the business.  Instead of wasting time, this helps to save a tremendous amount of both time and frustration along the way by avoiding misaligned or misunderstood goals.

2.     Make the process ongoing – instead of using a performance appraisal once per year, provide regular coaching and feedback.  Any struggles should be identified so that solutions can be developed, allowing team members to achieve their goals more effectively.  This also provides the team member with a clearer picture of how he or she is progressing in real time, instead of over a longer and less practical period.  Surprises are significantly reduced with regular performance monitoring and support.

3.     Utilize several tools – while developing a performance appraisal, managers should use several viewpoints to understand the performance of a team member.  Among them, one of the most effective can be a self-assessment from that team member.  This is a technique that is referred to as a 360-degree review.  It can involve the perspectives of several levels within the organization, such as the employee him or herself, as well as other team members, managers, subordinates, and representatives from other departments within the organization who must interact with that individual.  This allows the report to have depth, and minimizes near sightedness regarding the average day-to-day performance of the employee.

By making a performance appraisal a regular, easy, and efficient process, your business can adopt a number of important benefits that will ensure that the organization as a whole is more productive and that its team members are more engaged in their work.