Lesson 6.Performance Appraisal

Lesson 6: Performance AppraisalItalic text

Introduction

A dictionary definition of the verb appraise, means to fix a price for or to value an object or thing .Performance Appraisal therefore could be defined as the systematic process of valuing an employee’s worth and performance of duties with a view to improving it. It is also a process of objectively communicating to a person how he or she is performing the job in order to establish a plan of improvement through training and staff development .performance on its own refers to the degree of accomplishment of the tasks that make up an individual’s job. It is important to note that organizations have different methods of appraising their employees...some are done at the end of the year while others are not

Functions of Performance Appraisal process

Establish performance standards and enhance productivity  Link performance to reward  Communicate performance expectations to employees.  Measure actual performance  Compare actual performance with standards.  Discuss the appraisal with the employee  If necessary, initiate corrective action.  Motivate people

Importance to the Employee

• To help improve current performance of employees • To asses or identify development needs of employees • To asses future potentials of workers for promotional and advancement. • To counsel employees on career prospects and opportunities • To give employees feed back on their performance i.e. identifying the strength or weakness of an employee. Thus decrease the likelihood of being given undesirable and impossible assignment to do. • To rate the employee performance for salary review purposes. • To evaluate present supply of human resources for replacement and planning purposes. • To motivate and reduce employees turn-over. • To reduce and eliminate frustration from not knowing where is stant in the organization.

Importance to the organization

• Improve organizational development by exposing efficient, average and inefficient staff and recommending appropriate training programmes or incentives for them. • Reduce losses resulting from ineffective performance, gross negligence and wistful misconduct. • Improve overall productivity following more effective use of personnel; • Provides necessary information/data for manpower planning and personnel decision like promotion, transfers, pay increases, retrenchment, redundancy. • Reduce labor turn-over and motivate the work force.

Steps in Performance Appraisal

1.Identify specific goals and objectives for employees 2. establish job expectancy 3. examine the work done 4. appraise the performance 5. Discuss the appraisal with the person

Appraisal Techniques

• upward appraisal-employee appraise manager
• customer appraisal-customer appraise staff members
• 360o performance appraisal-everybody appraise each other

' Problems of performance appraisal'

 Bias and favoritism of raters based on social, religious, economic, political and other factors.  Dearth or lack of training rates.  Most supervisors see the exercise or process as time consuming.  Halo effect; e.g.being influenced by a particular trait of an employee.  Lack of objective target. 11. Lack of management commitment to the system. 12. Lack of feedback to appraise e.g. post appraisal interview. 13. Creates validity problems as some raters object to standardized and ideal rating methods. 14. Recency and critical incidence problem. 15. A superior officer and rater could be too lenient or strict with the appraisal of his\her subordinate.

Assignment  Can culture be managed?