Performance Appraisal - Excellent Opportunity for self auditing and formulating career plan

'Appraisals! Time to look for hikes, praises, promotions ...'. We like it or not, we all go through performance appraisal in different organizations. Existence of an appraisal program indicates to an employee that the organization is genuinely interested in their individual performance and development.

We can take it as a exercise to self improvement or waste of time. Performance appraisal can have a profound effect on individuals motivation and satisfaction - for better as well as for worse.

The latest mantra being followed by organizations across the world being – “get paid according to what you contribute” – the focus of the organizations is turning to performance management and specifically to individual performance.

In my view, Appraisal

• Offers a rare chance for a supervisor and subordinate to have "time out" for a one-on-one discussion of important work issues that might not otherwise be addressed.
• Offers a valuable opportunity to focus on work activities and goals, to identify and correct existing problems, and to encourage better future performance. Thus the performance of the whole organization is enhanced.
• Offers an excellent opportunity - perhaps the best that will ever occur - for a supervisor and subordinate to recognize and agree upon individual training and development needs.
• It is about building career plan with our managers.

Whole problem with appraisals come when appraisers are not able to create a proper relationship with appraise, and trust level is missing. Instead of constant feedback through out the year, few hard comments are provided at the end of the year. Also, failure from appraisers to make their appraisees understand the importance of appraisals and the objectives. Appraisals is not only about quantitative numbers and bonus ....

For Appraise - "Don’t blame the messenger for the bad news”. Appraise should try to understand that their managers are trying to help them to grow and succeed, as their success is linked to organization success. Areas of improvement will help them not only in coming year, but also through out their careers. Instead of being defensive, appraise should try to understand the feedback without any prejudice. Also, need to understand the importance of appraisal. It is all about feedback for improvement. We need to keep in mind is - not to blame others for our non-performance, not to lose our patience at criticism etc.


The most difficult part of the performance appraisal process is to accurately and objectively measure the employee performance. From the appraisers point of view, there are few points to keep in mind -

• Should not confront employees directly with criticism. Encourage open-ended questioning techniques that encourage the employee to identify their own performance problems.
• There are individuals who will not admit to anything that appears to reflect poorly on them. With ego defences on full-alert, they will resist the process of self-auditing very strongly. In such cases, appraisers may have no choice but to confront the poor performer directly and firmly with the evidence they have.
• In providing any feedback - especially negative feedback - appraisers should be willing and able to support their opinions with specific and clear examples. Vague generalizations should be avoided.
• Appraisers must carefully scrutinize their own perceptions, motives and prejudices.