Concept of Performance Appraisal
Performance appraisal is the systematic evaluation of employees with respect to their performance on their job and their potential for development. A performance appraisal is an evaluation done on an employee’s job performance over a specific period of time. The works performed by the different employees differ in many aspects due to the difference in their backgrounds, experiences, knowledge, skills, abilities, and aptitudes. Such differences determine the need for training and development activities. It is the equivalent of a report card on an employee and how their manager assessed their performance over the prior year. So, it is necessary for management to identify such differences so that employees having better job performance ability, skills and knowledge can be rewarded in one hand, and the wrong placements of the employees may be checked through transfer or punishments on other hands. In this regard, performance appraisal provides a measure in order to know the level of performance so that the employee may improve his/her performance.
Objectives of Performance appraisal:
- To review the performance of the employees over a given period of time.
- To judge the gap between the actual and the desired performance.
- To help the management in exercising organizational control.
- Helps to strengthen the relationship and communication between superior – subordinates and management – employees.
- To diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals so as to identify the training and development needs of the future.
- To provide feedback to the employees regarding their past performance.
- Provide information to assist in the other personnel decisions in the organization.
- Provide clarity of the expectations and responsibilities of the functions to be performed by the employees.
- To judge the effectiveness of the other human resource functions of the organization such as recruitment, selection, training, and development.
- To reduce the grievances of the employees.
Performance appraisal is a process of identifying, measuring, and managing employee’s performance in order to enhance organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Anyone who has worked in more than one department or at more than one organization can attest to the fact that not all performance appraisal processes are the same. It is a merit rating that denotes the appraisal of the performance of the employees in an organization. Performance appraisal systematically evaluates the personality and performance of each employee so that the productivity can be measured in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The varying systems and processes are all over the map. Unfortunately, some are done so poorly that they are not only designed to fail, but also to create a negative experience for both the manager as well as the employee. The primary purpose of performance appraisal is to facilitate the orderly determination of an employee’s worth in comparison to his/her fellow employees and expected level of performance. It provides information relating to various aspects of an individual upon which promotion, transfer and salary decisions can be made. It also provides an opportunity to review employee’s work-related behavior.
More precisely, performance appraisal can be defined as a systematic evaluation of an employee’s current, or past performance as well as future potentials by supervisors or those familiar with his/her performance. It defines an employee’s job-related behaviors and outcomes which help reward, motivate and empower employees at work. It also helps to identify future potentialities of an individual.
However, performance appraisal is a more comprehensive term for such activities because its use extends beyond ascertaining eligibility for promotion. Such activities may be training and development, salary increase, transfer, discharge etc. besides promotion
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