Performance appraisals can be tedious, but the end results are of great importance as it helps to evaluate an employee’s career progression scales, valuable contributions, strengths, weaknesses and performance for further improvements and also for salary increment considerations.
During such appraisals, employees are encouraged to express their issues faced, deliver valuable inputs and initiatives to enhance their productivity.
The two-ways communication portrays a fair and constructive measurement method to decide whether an employee deserves a promotion or a salary raise, remains to execute the same job roles or even when the need arises, to be put on probation for a period.
See also: 4 Types of Performance Appraisal Methods a Company can Adopt
However, employees seem to have different perceptions toward the performance appraisal. According to 2013 Globoforce’s study, 63 percents of people surveyed say that performance appraisals are not accurate indicators of performance. More than half of employees (51%) viewed them as inaccurate; even 53% said performance reviews don’t motivate them to work harder.
The objective of having an appraisal is to produce productive employees by finding out employees’ potentiality to groom them further and to allow both employer and employee to understand the weaknesses that could be improved on.
But is it being done right? Here, we listed various mistakes that HRs can avoid to alienate the inaccuracy of such appraisals.
The halo effect appears when the HR manager let their personal feeling of like or dislike towards an employee affects the ratings and reviews. As HR managers, it is important to be vigilant to your personal feelings and not interfuse them to the assessment.
Being the HR, avoiding conflicts and discontentment might be necessary. But if you feel uncomfortable to make a detailed judgement towards the employee during an appraisal by employees just on the average scale, central tendency error occurs.
Such errors will create a bias, unclear result whether employees are high performers, stagnant, or even low performers at work. Managers should be not afraid of any responses led by their assessments. An objective explanation with adequate evidence through a well-mannered delivery will lead the employees to accept evaluation and perform better.
A performance appraisal is held to evaluate employee’s’ annual performance. However, some managers fail to review the overall employees’ performance and tend to be more affected by their latest achievement at work.
According to the study of Globoforce, 22% employees surveyed argued that the performance appraisal doesn’t account for their past effort. Measuring employees’ performance based on their recent achievements and failures will lead to unobjective results. Instead, managers should have accurate records of the employees’ overall performance to prepare for a fair review.
The Globoforce Workforce Moodtracker Report also revealed that 40% of respondents disliked the performance appraisal as it only represents a single point of view. A single review from a person or one-sided arguments from employers’ perception tends to be more subjective and less reliable. Instead, managers should also encourage more point of views to assess an employee’s’ performance such as peer-to-peer reviews and self-assessments.
The personality of the employee and their attitude towards their work is not to be linked as one. When doing a performance assessment, evaluating the personality is considered to be ineffective. Managers should be more focus on employees’ behaviours, attitudes and performance at work.
When an appraisal is over, it is the manager’s tasks to follow up with some adequate supervision and guidance to set the employee’s goals, their focus on advancement and avoid the same errors made previously in their course of work. Without any follow-up actions, any goals set during the review will be left unguided until the next appraisal.
Employers, together with the HR manager and the superiors of the employees should be cautious of the above errors and avoid them affecting the result of the performance appraisals. Without the errors, employees will not be undervalued, or overvalued at work. Employers, on the other hand, can also set clear and precise outlines for employees’ advancement through an objective performance appraisal.
Next read: Do’s and Don’ts for HR Managers to Follow When Downsizing
