performance appraisal strengths weaknesses

1. Performance appraisal strengths weaknesses
In America's best-run and most-admired organizations, employee performance
appraisal is a vital and vigorous management tool. No other management process has
as much influence on individuals' careers and work lives.
Used well, employee performance appraisal is the most powerful instrument that
organizations have to mobilize the energy of every employee in the enterprise toward
the achievement of strategic goals. Employee performance appraisal can focus each
person's attention on the company's mission, vision and values. And ideally, the
process can answer the two fundamental questions that every single person in the
organization wants the answers to: What do you expect of me? And How am I doing?
But most folks scoff at the idea that there might be a perfect system for doing
employee performance appraisal. They think that since their organization is "unique,"
then their system for analyzing employee performance must be unique, too. How
foolish.
Don't scoff -- there is an ideal method for the assessment process. In organizations
that take employee performance appraisal seriously and use the process well, the
system functions as an on-going process - not merely an annual event - by following a
four-phase model.
Phase 1 -- Employee Performance Planning
At the beginning of the year, the manager meets with each person for discussion on
the planning piece of the employee performance appraisal process. In this hour-long
session they discuss the "how" and the "what" of the job:
o How the person will do the job (the behaviors and competencies expected of the
company's members), and
o What results the person will achieve over the next twelve months (the key
responsibilities of the person's job and the goals and projects the person will work on).
They also discuss the individual's development plans. This discussion immediately
generates improved employee performance because people know exactly what's
expected of them. And as the manager, you have just earned the right to hold people
accountable at the end of the year by making your expectations of them clear from the
start.
Phase 2 -- Employee Performance Execution
Over the course of the year, employee performance should be focused on achieving
the goals, objectives and key responsibilities of the job. The manager provides
coaching and feedback to the individual to increase the probability of success and
creates the conditions that motivate and resolve any performance problems that arise.

2. Midway through the year -- perhaps even more frequently -- they meet to review the
individual's progress toward the plans and goals discussed in the employee
performance planning meeting. And the employee is responsible for certain elements
of that progress - seeking out coaching and asking for feedback are two key examples.
Phase 3 -- Employee Performance Assessment
As the time for the formal employee performance appraisal approaches, the manager
reflects on how well the subordinate has performed over the course of the year,
assembles the various forms and paperwork that the organization provides to make
this assessment, and fills them out. The manager may also recommend a change in the
individual's compensation based on the quality of the individual's work.
Best practice calls for the appraiser's boss to review the completed assessment form
before discussing it with the assessed employee. One key here is not falling victim to
the "myth of quantifiability" -- the erroneous belief that in order to be objective you've
got to have numerical data to prove your assessments. Nonsense! An employee
performance appraisal is a record of a manager's opinion of an employee's quality of
work, so don't shirk from candidly providing that opinion.
Phase 4 -- Employee Performance Review
The manager and the subordinate meet, usually for about an hour. The employee
performance appraisal form is reviewed with the self-appraisal that the individual
created assessing her own performance. The manager and employee talk honestly
about how well she performed over the past twelve months: Strengths, weaknesses,
successes and areas needing improvement. At the end of the review meeting they set a
date to meet again to hold an employee performance planning discussion for the
upcoming twelve months, starting the process anew.
This four-phase performance appraisal process not only transforms employee
performance management from an annual event to an on-going cycle, it tightly links
the performance of each organization member with the mission and values of the
company as a whole. And that's the real purpose of employee performance appraisal
in the organization. The real value is focusing everyone's attention on what is
genuinely important -- the achievement of the organization's strategic goals through
demonstration of the company's vision and values in each employee's day-to-day
behavior.
http://performanceappraisalebooks.info/ : Over 200 ebooks, templates, forms for
performance appraisal.