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How to do performance appraisal

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I. Contents of getting how to do performance appraisal


==================
With summer upon us and the year half over, many managers and employees are engaging in that
oft-criticized, much maligned, but still necessary exercise: performance evaluation.
Yes, formal evaluations generally happen at the end of the calendar year, but many companies
require their managers to conduct midterm evaluations as well, to help avoid year-end surprises.
Be it at mid-year or year end, a common component of these evaluations is the employees selfassessment. In some cases, these self-assessments just amount to the employee submitting a list
of accomplishments to his or her manager. Increasingly, though, theyre institutionalized as part
of a companys formal performance evaluation document. For every performance criterion,
theres space for the employees rating and comments as well as for the managers.
In theory, self-assessments serve a useful purpose. They give employees an opportunity to
objectively reflect on their performance, to consider what theyve done well and where theyve
fallen short, and then to share their perspective with their manager. And, in theory, the manager
captures the employees perspective as one of many data points that shape the ultimate
evaluation.
But its not like that in reality. The performance evaluation process is actually among the most
hypocritical management activities there are. Chief executives and the people around them
publicly proclaim the importance of performance assessment and development, but all too often
they fail to practice what they preach. They have to be strong-armed by their human resources
departments to actually prepare their reviews for their own direct reports.

Further down in the organization, line managers are implored by those same top executives to
conduct thoughtful performance reviews for their own staffand they find themselves short on
time and searching for shortcuts.
Thats where self-assessments cease to be just a data point and instead practically become the
review itself. It works like this: A manager takes the employees self-assessment, adds some
superficial comments or check marks and assigns a final performance rating. Presto! A
performance review that satisfies human resources, with a bare minimum of the managers effort.
And people wonder why employees think evaluations are ridiculous.
When managers commandeer their employees self-assessments and turn them, with little or no
modification, into their own final reviews, they do a great disservice to both those employees and
the company. Thats because those self-assessments are missing key sources of constructive
feedback. No matter how objective or perceptive an employee is, his self-assessment is unlikely
to capture the diversity of perspectives that the manager should be compiling from customers,
colleagues and, where applicable, subordinatesnot to mention the managers own notes and
recollections.
The employee is robbed of what could have been game-changing feedback, hindering his own
career ambitions. And the company is deprived of a genuine performance evaluation and
improvement mechanism, thwarting its efforts to cultivate and retain talent.
Layer on top of all that the employees ire at a performance review process gone dreadfully awry,
and you have a recipe for a workforce that grows increasingly distrustful of its superiors and
skeptical of those superiors leadership capacity. Moreover if you think that attitude will go
unnoticed by your customers, youre in for a surprise.
The good news is that there are straightforward moves business leaders can make to avoid this
dynamic, with their own direct reports and with their whole organizations:
Make a genuine effort to write evaluations from scratch. Take the time to reflect on each
employees performance and thoughtfully compose constructive comments for every review.
Even if the employee doesnt agree with all you say, he will appreciate and respect you for
writing your own reviews instead of merely parroting his self-assessment. If you lead a large
organization, doing this for your own direct reports will send an unmistakable signal about how
you expect your managers to prepare reviews for their staffs.
Keep a diary. One of the reasons managers look for shortcuts to writing reviews is because they
struggle to think of something to write. With multiple direct reports and six to 12 months of

activity to keep track of for each, its no wonder that even the most seasoned leaders resist the
exercise. To make it easier, keep a running diary for all your direct reports, a cumulative
accounting of specific behaviors and accomplishments that illustrate performance strengths and
weaknesses. Then when it comes time to write the reviews from scratch, youll already have a
robust set of observations and commentary to pull from.
Carefully manage spans of control. Even managers with the most detailed diaries and strongest
passion for employee development will look for shortcuts if there simply isnt time to craft a
detailed review. This can happen when theyre given a ridiculously large number of employees to
supervise. You cant expect someone who has a small army of direct reports to author a thorough
evaluation on each and every one of them twice a year. Companies like to use bloated spans of
control to help cut expensesbut they fail to fully comprehend the effect on both leaders and
staff.
Inspect what you expect. What gets measured gets managed, but rarely are good measures put
in place to track employee development. Sure, the human resources department may request a
copy of all performance reviews, just to make sure theyre actually done. That doesnt gauge the
actual quality of the reviews. If the exercise is truly important to an organization, then executives
should periodically evaluate the evaluations. Simply by looking them over you can see if the
process is failing or being evaded and then take action to correct it.
No manager in her right mind would ever knowingly delegate a performance reviewand no
executive would ever tolerate such behavior. But it effectively happens all the time when
managers commandeer their employees self-assessments because theyre unable or unwilling to
craft comprehensive evaluations themselves.
The stakes are high. If your employees think you and your company arent making a genuine
effort to evaluate and improve their performance, their morale and their engagement in the
companys mission will suffer. That will inevitably hurt them and, ultimately, the customers they
serve.
When it comes to composing ones own performance review, thats a task that shouldnt be in
any employees job description.
==================

III. Performance appraisal methods

1. Essay Method

In this method the rater writes down the employee


description in detail within a number of broad categories
like, overall impression of performance, promoteability
of employee, existing capabilities and qualifications of
performing jobs, strengths and weaknesses and training
needs of the employee. Advantage It is extremely
useful in filing information gaps about the employees
that often occur in a better-structured checklist.
Disadvantages It its highly dependent upon the writing
skills of rater and most of them are not good writers.
They may get confused success depends on the memory
power of raters.

2. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales


statements of effective and ineffective behaviors
determine the points. They are said to be
behaviorally anchored. The rater is supposed to
say, which behavior describes the employee
performance. Advantages helps overcome rating
errors. Disadvantages Suffers from distortions
inherent in most rating techniques.

3. Rating Scale
Rating scales consists of several numerical scales
representing job related performance criterions such as
dependability, initiative, output, attendance, attitude etc.
Each scales ranges from excellent to poor. The total
numerical scores are computed and final conclusions are
derived. Advantages Adaptability, easy to use, low cost,
every type of job can be evaluated, large number of
employees covered, no formal training required.
Disadvantages Raters biases

4. Checklist method
Under this method, checklist of statements of traits of
employee in the form of Yes or No based questions is
prepared. Here the rater only does the reporting or
checking and HR department does the actual evaluation.
Advantages economy, ease of administration, limited
training required, standardization. Disadvantages Raters
biases, use of improper weighs by HR, does not allow
rater to give relative ratings

5.Ranking Method
The ranking system requires the rater to rank his
subordinates on overall performance. This consists in
simply putting a man in a rank order. Under this method,
the ranking of an employee in a work group is done
against that of another employee. The relative position of
each employee is tested in terms of his numerical rank. It
may also be done by ranking a person on his job
performance against another member of the competitive
group.
Advantages of Ranking Method
Employees are ranked according to their
performance levels.
It is easier to rank the best and the worst
employee.
Limitations of Ranking Method
The whole man is compared with another
whole man in this method. In practice, it is very difficult
to compare individuals possessing various individual
traits.

This method speaks only of the position where an


employee stands in his group. It does not test anything
about how much better or how much worse an employee
is when compared to another employee.
When a large number of employees are working,
ranking of individuals become a difficult issue.
There is no systematic procedure for ranking
individuals in the organization. The ranking system does
not eliminate the possibility of snap judgements.

6. Critical Incidents Method


The approach is focused on certain critical behaviors of
employee that makes all the difference in the
performance. Supervisors as and when they occur record
such incidents. Advantages Evaluations are based on
actual job behaviors, ratings are supported by
descriptions, feedback is easy, reduces recency biases,
chances of subordinate improvement are high.
Disadvantages Negative incidents can be prioritized,
forgetting incidents, overly close supervision; feedback
may be too much and may appear to be punishment.

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