Employee Performance Appraisal Problems and Solutions

Performance appraisal is often a negative and disliked activity. Managers do not like giving them and employees do not like receiving them. Some managers believe that it is a waste of time. Indifference from people towards Performance Appraisal at the receiving end can arise because they see performance appraisal as simply another weapon in the hands of managers to take disciplinary action against the employees. 

Here are the Top 6 problems with performance appraisals: 

If you can influence these six big problems in performance appraisal, you will go a long way toward having a useful, developmental system in which the employee's voice plays a prominent role. The solutions provided are the right way to approach performance appraisal problems. 

 On top of everything the implementation and success of Performance Appraisal largely depend on the continued support, encouragement, and participation of the Management. The organization should develop an effective performance appraisal system and should be a high priority for management. In particular, the HR team has a major part to play in developing performance appraisal. The HR team should act as internal consultants and coaches, providing encouragement and guidance as required. 

5 Tips for choosing the right Performance Management Software

Good performance management must include continuous feedback, consistent goals and objectives, frequent communication or check-ins and learning and development. The software you are looking for should have these modules and additionally, if these modules can be integrated with each other, that’s even better. 

For choosing the best solution for performance management, check for the software that allows providing feedback on an ongoing basis; align each employee’s goals and manager’s goals to that of organization, comprehensively measure and analyze employees’ performance against their goal objectives. 

Below are the top 5 tips to select the right performance management system for the organization. 

In conclusion, there is a lot of information available to us now through global studies on what employees really want from their employers. One common aspect of these studies is professional growth and genuine engagement. Companies need to help their employees grow. They need to invest in the right set of tools and technology to measure and manage performance, ensure motivation and keep inspiration levels high. 

The right Performance Management Software tool can make salary decisions based on performance and allows doing the performance review process in an organized way. But before investing in such software, do a lot of research in the tool that you opt to purchase. 

How to Motivate Employees During Performance Reviews?

The way you motivate, and reward employees are everything. When employees believe they are treated fairly and guided toward meeting clearly stated goals, they will be passionate about their work. 

Knowing how to motivate employees is a struggle for many managers. Employee Engagement can be harder when the workforce is diverse. Different types of employees respond differently to motivation. If you want to successfully encourage all employees, learn how to motivate different personality types. 

At the end of the day having a team that lacks motivation results in bad performance. On the other hand, having a happier, healthier workforce could be the key to your team performing better. 

In a nutshell, motivating employees during performance reviews can act as a promoting agent for an employee to improve his productivity. When the employee sees their goals clearly defined and when their performance challenges are identified and when their career development solutions are in place to help advance their career, these practices will motivate the employee to achieve those goals. By creating a comprehensive plan for employee development and giving employee achievements, they will strive and will inspire a higher level of efficiency.  This helps to improve the notion of teamwork among the employees and can also encourage cooperation to achieve corporate goals. 

The Top 5 Mistakes You Should Avoid When Giving Performance Reviews

Performance review mistakes are easy to make. Avoid the most common errors while conducting performance reviews such as setting no clear standards specific to employee skills, bias error, tending to evaluate employees on an average. 

Managers must set one-on-one meetings with each employee once or maybe twice a year. Also, the manager must organize, prepare, and give performance reviews as a part of the employee development process. 

Performance reviews are a simple concept. But in vain, no one really looks forward to this valuable process. The result is that lots of mistakes are made when giving performance reviews. Hence avoid the below mistakes. 

In conclusion, do the performance review process in a structure and a valuable way to help your team and your business constantly improve. Document each performance review to have a record of these events for the future. 

Allow for a documented exchange of feedback whenever there is a discussion between a manager and an employee. This will create a chance to pat your team members on the back, tell them where they can improve, and let them know where they stand. By providing honest and effective feedback, you can help your employees grow their career, and can become more productive. 

Implementing the best Performance Management Tool for your Organization

If you want to improve the motivation, competency, and engagement of your team, a performance management system should be in your organization. It will help your team members understand their objectives and what is expected of them and improve their relationship with their manager. 

The key is to implement the performance management tool properly. Start using the performance management system with your team and make sure everyone understands how it works. Assess your team and their performance with the performance management system.  

The steps of the performance management process and how one goes about implementing them are summarized as follows.  

In a nutshell for an effective review, perform the performance management process in a structured way since the process is to be repeated more often. If the performance management process is done properly then the overall performance of the employees in the organization will be improved effectively. When conducting a review meeting, brainstorm the ways to improve employee performance during the next term or for the near future. Also, discuss their development and plans. Ensure evaluations minimize defensiveness and help team members learn and ensure they feel the performance management process is fair.

Top 5 Goals of Performance Appraisal

An efficient employee performance appraisal can bring a lot of benefits to the employees as well as the organizations. The most important part is getting to know the goals and objectives of performance appraisal. The overall goal or objective of performance appraisal is to enhance the individual goals of the employees along with the organizational objectives. Also, it enhances the skills and personal development of employees mainly through the help of managers and leaders. Additionally, encourage work that helps in fulfilling business goals. 

The following highlights the top 5 goal attributes of performance appraisal: 

Employee Performance Management Across Generations

Performance management is a nurturing process that seeks to develop employees holistically, so that they are motivated to contribute effectively to the business outcomes. Employee performance management has a methodology that usually starts with employee goal management to distributing appraisal letters. however, each generation has a different perspective towards performance management, depending upon each generation's comfort level.

Related article: Refreshing Performance Management for Gen Y Employees

5 Major Objectives of Performance Management

Performance Management aims at building a high-performance culture in the company. The Performance objectives are often required to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, commonly known as SMART.  Through performance management, all employees can track their work progress against the goals defined. You can follow the below methods to create a constructive performance evaluation process and to communicate with employees. 

The following Key Processes are streamlined through Performance Management: 

How to ask the right questions in 360 Degree reviews?

While performance reviews focus on an employee’s performance at work, 360 Degree feedback reviews focus on the employee’s individual attributes. The performance aspect is just an element of 360 Degree reviews. However, a lot of people forget how vital 360 Degree forms are. We always need to check the questions that we ask in a 360 Degree feedback form. Therefore, your entire feedback mechanism is contingent upon the questions you ask.  

Since we have discussed how questions are instrumental in a 360 Degree Feedback form, let us look at a few tips that could make your 360 Degree Feedback process successful: 

HOW TO ENGAGE MILLENNIAL EMPLOYEES IN THE WORKPLACE?

With the increasing number of millennials occupying the workforce, there is a strong need for building a strong workplace culture. A lot of companies have even made employee engagement easier by providing millennials with a little more flexibility in the workplace. However, the one major problem that managers face is engaging millennial employees. Providing flexibility in terms of time schedule and working from home help millennials to dedicate their time effectively in completing the work. Millennials crave a good work-life balance. But this flexibility is not always a feasible option. There comes a lot of challenges when millennials are not able to work in a traditional work environment. Let us look at how we could engage millennials in the workplace: 

Tips for Choosing the Right Performance Management Software

There is no dearth of performance management software for businesses. Companies have a lot of variety in terms of choosing what is best for their business based on various factors. But obviously, our job is not done because getting a Performance Management Software is fine but using it is the real deal. We need to understand how PMS software helps us to reinvent our performance reviews. Therefore, we must identify the elements required for our business before investing in a Performance Management Software: 

How to Drive Employee Engagement?

The first thing that we need to realize is that, when it comes to employee engagement there is no one size that fits all. There are many strategies for employee engagement and sometimes we cannot universally implement the same strategies for all the organizations. Different strategies work for different people. Let us examine a few strategies to drive employee engagement: 

What are the Objectives of Performance Management?

Performance management is a nurturing and holistic process that seeks to develop employees with the required skills and competencies to work towards the overall development of the business. It also emphasizes on improving employee performance taking into consideration the business requirements. Performance management involves giving continuous feedback and help the employee to achieve his career aspirations.  

It aims to create a positive work culture where everyone takes accountability jointly for bringing out the business outcomes, honing their skills and competencies at the same time. It requires to unleash the employee’s full potential by communicating the business objectives, performance expectations, competencies, responsibilities and employee goals. It is good that there are tools available in the market to automate performance processes. With the help of an employee performance management software, it has now become easier to integrate all the departments towards the business to assess employee performance. 

Performance Management Vs Performance Appraisal

The terms employee performance management and employee performance appraisal are often used in the same context. However, there is a thin line of difference between the two concepts. Performance management is a holistic process that requires regular feedback. But performance appraisals come under performance management. This illustration explains the differences between the two.  

Four Steps That Transform a Worker into a Leader - Infographics

Every worker is a born leader. Leadership is an important skill required in the workplace. Better leadership strategies result in better employee engagement. Every worker can be a leader. Every worker can motivate others and inspire them to give their best. Let us explore four steps through which you can transform a worker to a leader. 

Tips for a Successful 360 Degree Feedback

Feedback has become an integral part of every performance process. The 360 Degree feedback is a popular tool that is being used is various performance management processes. The 360 Degree feedback mechanism enables feedback from multiple sources such as self, peers, managers, and external stakeholders on an employee’s performance. Such a feedback mechanism helps employees gain an overall perspective on their performance. 

5 Tricks for Better Performance Reviews

Performance reviews form an important component of any organizations. Employee Performance reviews play an important role in transforming our company culture and effective employee engagement. However, performance reviews are rarely conducted the right way. There was a time when performance reviews would be conducted annually, and managers would objectively review the performance of an employee in the past. However, such a system is not good enough in the current scenario. Therefore, here are a few tricks for conducting better performance reviews: 

How to prepare for your Employee Performance Appraisal process

The day of reckoning – the employee performance appraisal is an inevitable activity happening year on year at every organization. How well you prepared to face the day shows your character and commitment. Performance appraisal is important for employees, managers, HRs and organizations. It shows your successes and setbacks as an individual, as a team and as an organization. It highlights your rise against all odds or the reverse. Armed with our preparation tips for employees, managers and HRs you can come through with flying colors.

Preparation Tips for Employees:

Gather Information:

It is better to err on the side of information overload rather than underprepared for your appraisal. Collect data and metrics regarding your goals, progress, performance, growth, achievements, and technical & collaborative skills. 

Review your performance truthfully

Know your goals and objectives for which you are assessed. Understand the priorities and importance of each goal. Review your progress on these lines and list out the highlights, lowlights, progress, setbacks, challenges and triumphs.

Maintain ‘notes to myself’

It is hard to remember all the activities and incidents happened during the review period, especially if the review period is annual. It is advisable to maintain an incident diary to record all the activities so that you won’t miss anything important during your appraisal. Synergita PMS software offers such wonderful features which makes employee performance appraisal stress-free.

Prepare a list of accomplishments

Be ready with the details of your contribution to the project/task. Highlight the new skills you learned to complete the project successfully. If you have proof such as an appreciation email from the customer or recognition from your peers or managers, present it proudly. 

Write honest self-feedback

Give honest feedback about your performance. Describe the trials and triumphs you encountered in your work. While mentioning an unsuccessful task, explain what lessons you learned and the measures taken to rectify the mistake. Mention your strengths and the areas on which you need to improve openly. Point out how you act on previous appraisal feedback and enhanced your skills and competencies.

Keep an open mind

Receive your manager’s feedback with an open mind. No one is perfect. You are bound to get a few good and not-so-good feedbacks. Learn to respond maturely to feedbacks, especially for negative feedbacks. Don’t try to blame the mistake on others. Accept your mistakes and let your manager know that you have improved. 

Draw up other discussion points

Jot down any pressing issues that need to be discussed with your manager, such as the guidance you expect from your manager, your career aspiration or promotions, pay rise, the project change or internal transfers, etc. Leverage the opportunity to clearly communicate your ideas and suggestions.

Prepare for your performance appraisal well in advance. Manage it efficiently and successfully. Take it as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Tips for Managers to conduct a smooth performance review:

Managers are the chief coach, mentor and offer support and guidance at the right time. They work closely with the reports and understand their progress or the lack thereof. 
 

•   Convey that you genuinely care about their progress and career growth with your words and actions.
•   Recognize their accomplishment and compliment profusely
•    Give negative feedback in a non-offensive, constructive way so that they can improve and contribute to the success of the project.
•   Express your opinion honestly. List out their strengths and areas of improvement.
•   Don’t let the recency effect cloud your assessment. Look at their contribution for the entire review period
•   Employee performance appraisal is individual specific and not the performance of the team. Don’t miss to identify your high-performing employees because of the cookie cutter effect.
•   Be balanced while giving the rating to your employees. Don’t allow your favoritism or previous rating influence your feedback.
•   Reviews are a two-way street. Managers can get insights into the challenges faced by the team and how it can be managed efficiently in the future.

Tips for HRs to make performance appraisal stress-free

HR folks spearhead the employee performance appraisal process. They initiate the appraisal process; follow up with employees to complete the review process and one-on-one meeting on-time. 

•  Encourage your employees to prepare for the appraisal well in advance.
•  Conduct a workshop to guide employees and managers on the best practices for giving feedback and one-on-one discussion.
•  Nurture an open feedback culture through continuous feedback tools.
•  Educate employees that performance appraisal is all about development and course-correction and not just employee evaluation.
•  Provide easy-to-use performance appraisal software for your employees to complete the appraisal process quickly. 

HRs, Managers and employees should prepare diligently to conduct the appraisal process smoothly. With ample preparation, you can ace it easily. Good luck with your next appraisal.