Essay about Performance Appraisal

An appraisal is one of the most commonly used methods of formal assessment and is used to evaluate and assess the performance of an employee against agreed targets and objectives, with the aim of improving employee performance. Where an employee has been able to achieve their targets, the appraisal can be used to recognise successes. This often helps to increase an employee’s confidence and motivation and can lead to better organisational performance. Many organisations will use the outcomes of an appraisal to identify potential candidates for promotions or even an increase in pay. At the same time, an appraisal meeting may include discussions on underperformance, identifying why this has occurred and how this can be avoided in the future.

Therefore any of these evaluation methods can be applied by Littlemore’s superstores to evaluate staffs’ personal skills given below:

There are two methods that are being tested for this position to evaluate this employee’s job performance. These methods are the factor comparison and the point method. Both of these methods could be effective for evaluating this position. Both of these methods are based on the employee’s skills. They are based on the skills of the individual only, not compared to other’s skills within the organization. However, using these methods could also be difficult to assess the baker’s skill level. Research would have to be done using other stores comparable to Kudler Fine Foods and their skilled baker’s. This research would have to collect data that would give the manager’s at Kudler an idea of what the job performance level should be as a baker.

The annual performance review seems ineffective, a waste of time, or it becomes demotivating for employees and thus counterproductive. Employee appraisal is a method of measuring and evaluating employee job performance. The employee evaluation consists of regular reviews at different intervals every six months or yearly reviews. The evaluations are a pre-determined set of criteria centered on organizational goals. A manager conducts performance evaluations and discusses the employee’s strengths, weaknesses, employee behaviors, productivity. A performance appraisal is essential for refinement, maintaining, or increasing job performance. These reports give the employee insight to where improvement is needed, and it provides an opportunity for development.

For years, Burger King used an employee appraisal that embrace seven performance dimensions which were leadership, ability, job, knowledge, work output, attendance, and

Furthermore, a performance appraisal policy could be implemented for fair and adequate allocation of compensation. For this case study the 360 degree appraisal system could be selected to evaluate performance of the workforce. In a 360 degree appraisal system, feedback is drawn out from multiple sources of key performance areas of the workforce which are competencies, behaviour and mind-set, work life balance, major achievements and areas of improvements.

“Performance Appraisal is the systematic evaluation of the performance of employees and to understand the abilities of a person for further growth and development. Performance appraisal is generally done in systematic ways in order to enable supervisors to more accurately or fairly measure the pay of employees and compare it with targets and plans.” (MSG, 2008) The supervisor can critique the factors behind work performances of employees and are at a level/position to guide the employees towards self-improvement. Performance appraisal can be done with the

The most important purpose or goal of the appraisal is to improve performance and hence productivity in the future. Performance appraisals allow employees to see where they are at and managers can get valuable information from employees to help them make employee's jobs more productive. Performance appraisals sound great in theory but the odd thing is that they often don't get done, and many managers, supervisors and employees hate them. Legal implications, concerns about fairness and accuracy, costs and time are some of the issues which perhaps incline some managers to avoid performance appraisals but the reality is companies which have adopted this system find the benefits to be more than rewarding.

Meanwhile, performance appraisal serves as an important practice and approach among business organizations in order to facilitate control on the development of the company as well as to monitor the activities, plans and strategies from which the company will benefit. Performance appraisal is a process of assessing whether organizational objectives are met. It would evaluate how the employee’s performance has fared to satisfy the organization (2003). Such evaluation seeks to monitor and improve effectiveness by giving the employee feedback on his/her performance. This process should be carried out at regular intervals and should follow specific protocols to maintain objectivity in the evaluation process.

The employment studies institute (IRS: 2001) suggests that appraisal is a victim of its own expectations; it expects an employee to deliver in too many areas. Organisations may focus on development, identifying future potential, reward, identifying poor performers, or motivation. In the IRS survey (IRS 2005b) 92 percent of companies used appraisal to determine training and development needs of their employees while 65 percent of them used it to determine pay with 43 percent of them using the system formally or informally to determine bonuses within their organisation. However, as these approaches clash the results are typically unsatisfactory and such kind of surveys cannot be relied upon to determine employee needs as per the performance appraisal. Egan (1995) argues that the problem with appraisal not only relates to poor design or implementation, but it is deep rooted in the basic reaction of organisational members to such a concept. (Human resource Management: Torrington,Hall & Taylor)In organisations where there are too many expectations or too much to deliver the

Performance appraisal is defined by Mathias, Jackson (2005, p106) as ‘the process of evaluating how well employees perform their jobs as compared to a set of standards, and then communicating that information to those employees.’ This evaluation or review is usually carried out periodically. A performance appraisal usually forms an integral part of an organization’s Performance Management System, and although there are criticisms against performance appraisals, its many advantages heavily outweigh their shortcomings.

It is a formalized, regular and recorded review of the way by which an individual is performing his job. It simply means the evaluation of the performance of employees. It is a continuous systematic evaluation of the individual with respect to his performance on the job and his potential for development. It is very important to every manager and hereby becomes an integral part of every manager’s function. It is an informal day-to-day activity in order to get work done and to know who exactly among the workers will the job be allocated to. It varies from one organization to the order especially when it concerns the extent of staff participation, the planning degree and the purposes and priorities of appraisal systems.

Performance appraisals are an aid to creating and maintaining a satisfactory level of performance by employees on their jobs. Chatterjee, B (2002: 216) has argued that “the mere knowledge that their performance is being assessed and that such an assessment will have an important bearing on their future within the organisation is a powerful incentive for them to sustain and if possible better their present level of performance”. Therefore performance appraisals help management in motivating and maximising the potential of its employees.

Appraisal performance of individual, groups and organizations is something important for all organizations to succeed and achieve its objectives. Also it is used to evaluate the performance of the employees and monitor them to achieve the desired goal.

Performance appraisal is a comparatively new approach to assess employee’s performance. It is commonly used in organisations to bring successive change in employee performance, and it is an opportunity for employees to participate and resolve all kinds of work related matters including wages, job recognition. The main objectives of this review for employers are to identify the areas of employees training and development needs.