Defining a Performance Appraisal Process
Defining and Designing a performance appraisal process can be difficult to do for an organization. Before you can start to define one, determine the goals of the process first. What do you want to achieve with the appraisal process?
- Is the process going to be a justification for the salary adjustment?
- Is the process to provide feedback for your employees regarding their performance?
Whatever the goal is you will need to define it before designing the appraisal process. Define the goals first then start with how you plan to achieve those goals.
The first step in defining any performance management system or performance appraisal process is going to start with planning. The planning should involve defining the job responsibilities, establishing the objectives, performance measures and reviewing the core competencies for each job role within your organization. After you have identified those for all of the job roles with company, you can begin to put together performance appraisal templates that will be able to track and document employee’s performance through out a given time period.
Typically an effective performance management system is defined with these high level steps.
- Document Job Responsibilities for each role that performance will be measured
- Document Performance Objectives and Goals for Each job responsibility
- Define a rating scale for which the employee’s performance will be measured
- Define for each job responsibility or performance objective a development opportunities list that you can provide to the employee’s to help them develop a particular skill.
- Plan the time line for the review cycles typically an annual review process works for most companies.
- Plan to have a check in process periodically before the formal review process, to give employee’s feedback prior to the formal review. Ongoing feedback should be part of your performance appraisal process. Either quarterly or at some regularly scheduled timeframe.
The Performance Appraisal Process you define and maintain is key to successful employees and if done correctly and given enough thought, can make better employees who will work harder for you.
