Performance Appraisals

Performance appraisals are used to assess an employee’s performance and create a mechanism for providing feedback about past, current, and future performance expectations.

Performance appraisal is the process of determining how well employees do their jobs relative to a standard and communicating that information to them. This tool is a key part of performance management because it helps employees improve their job performance. They are often viewed as a critical element of any performance management approach.

Several terms can be used when referring to performance appraisals. These include employee rating, employee evaluation, performance review, performance evaluation, and results appraisal. When designed well, performance appraisals can highlight and address many work-related issues, and by communicating a positive roadmap to employees, poor performance can often be successfully improved.

But there are several challenges associated with performance appraisals. For instance, ratings night not adequately reflect the actual job performance exhibited by employees because of a rater’s bias, misperceptions, or failure to watch employees work. Despite these challenges, having no formal performance appraisal can weaken discipline in a company and harm an employee’s ability to improve.