Essay on Performance Appraisal

Performance appraisal is an important issue in human resource management and has a significant effect in the performance of an organisation. It is the system of evaluating the performance of employees regarding the accomplishment of their responsibilities and determining their potential to grow and develop. Bias in the evaluation process can affect the accuracy and appropriateness of the performance appraisal. Bias is a serious issue because it affects the ability to make appropriate decisions about the promotion of employees. A performance appraisal system that works to the disadvantage of members of a group can also pose legal issues.

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.

Performance appraisal is a method which is increasingly used to evaluate employees to determine the degree to which they are performing effectively and encourage them to direct their energies towards organizational performance. Although the appraisal is being practiced, there are criticisms made against the system which generally arise from within the Orthodox and radical management frame work.

The processes demonstrates a commitment to people within the business by showing them that they are valued members of the company and their success is important to the entire organization.

What are performance appraisals? Simply put, they are the evaluation of goals that are pre-determined and set by both the employee and organization (Harvard Business Press, 2009). They are used to measure an employee’s performance and team performance.

A performance appraisal is one of the most important factors in any organization and can be one of the greatest tools used to record employee production. Every organization has to have goals and objectives established and the employee has to be involved in this process. By conducting performance appraisal will improve productivity and also the morale of the employees.

Development of a performance appraisal system that is effective in a human service organization is of benefit for the organization and the employees. For a performance appraisal system to be effective, the system has to be strategic, designed to fit the specific needs of the organization, non-discriminatory, non-bias, with correct implementation and administration. Many different components, must to be incorporated to make this type of system beneficial for all who use it, and all who are evaluated by the system.

There are so many focuses or themes that I might construct on my individual paper on ‘Developing high performance working’. One of them is functions of performance management; this will include strategic, administrative and the developmental. According to (Baron and Armstrong, 1998 cited in Bloisi, 2007:254), they “emphasise and integrated nature of performance management”. The second one is the administrative function; several organisations nowadays use performance management to evaluate employees about their salaries, retentions, redundancies and individual performance. Lastly, the developmental function should enable managers to identify where employees are not performing well and how they can improve it. Additionally, I will be explaining the performance appraisal and how does it process. According to (Bloisi, 2007:259), performance appraisal is the “process of measuring and evaluating employees’ performance. It can be a useful tool for employee development”. Dealing with poor performance is another topic that I will include in my individual paper; managers have to identify employees with poor performance, so they can take an action on them. Lastly, I will include performance management and how managers can administrate performance within the

As stated by Peter F. Drucker, “Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant.” Performance management is essential to achieving an organization 's mission statement and business goals, and also in attracting, retaining, and motivating qualified employees. There are many benefits and reasons why an organization should execute a performance management system. Performance appraisals establish the basis for qualifying, recognizing, and rewarding employee contributions. In this paper, I will discuss what performance management is, the problems with the current performance management system at my organization, how other organizations have succeeded in their performance management system and how I would advise management at my current organization to improve our performance management system.

Performance appraisal is an evaluation and grading exercise undertaken in organizations to achieve several objectives such as employee motivation, identification of training needs, rewards and remuneration, employee development through feedback etc. [Fig. 1]. All methods for performance appraisal have several advantages and disadvantages based on location of the firm, socio-economic environment, vision and mission of the firm, organizational structure and other factors. Organizations in different industrial sectors may have different focus areas of work and different values and thus, expectations from employees vary across sectors.

CIPD (2012) ‘While performance appraisal is an important part of performance management, in itself it is not performance management: rather, it is one of the range of tools that can be used to manage performance. However, it is a common mistake to assume that if organizations implement performance appraisals, they have performance management. Performance management is a holistic process bringing together many activities that collectively contribute to the effective management of individuals and teams in order to achieve high levels of organizational performance. The process is strategic, in that it is about broader issues and long-term goals, and integrated in that

Performance Management Within the Workplace The basis of the mainstream of performance appraisals within the modern workplace is one person (a manager or executive) rating one more, an intrinsically individual process. There are distinction such as 360 degree appraisals that include the judgment of others such as clientele and peers/colleagues in the process but it is the action of one person transitory judgment upon another that is subjective in nature and the root cause of many of the problems encountered in the research associated with performance appraisals. Performance appraisals are of importance to the organisation, as they often provide the only measure of an individual's contribution and

“Performance appraisals can enhance employee performance as well as advance the mission and goals of an organization. There are many advantages of performance appraisals if they are applied fairly, consistently and objectively. Performance appraisals not applied fairly can be counterproductive and even destructive to

In a typical and effective process of performance management, as demonstrated in Figure 2.1, performance appraisal is not the only but a vital element because it is the activity which evaluate the outcome of the work, recognize the achievement and weaknesses and give employees and managers a straightforward result on these(Armstrong, 2009, Hutchinson, 2013). From a modern perspective, performance appraisal covers more areas not only on what have been achieved but also on the attitude and contribution of the operator (Hutchinson, 2013), which enhance the functions of identifying training needs.

Today, performance appraisal is used for developmental and motivational purposes in the organization. It is not a stand still evaluation activity, but a dynamic process which should be viewed as follows- planning the employee’s performance and evaluation, and improving the performance of employees. The process brings the new concept Performance Management. Performance Management is essential for today’s organization to integrate the management goals and employees performance. It is a system for integrating the management of organization and employee performance in order to support and improve organization’s overall business goals.