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An appraisal is an official document given by an appraiser that estimates the replacement value and quality of an item. An appraiser makes a report after examination and detailed analysis of the property.

Types of Appraisals

Drive by Appraisals: This is an abbreviated appraisal that requires less data and inspection by the appraiser. The data is generally collected verbally or from records.

Professional Appraisals: Appraisals for personal property like estate tax, donation, sale of insurance, damage claims and equitable distribution.

Sustainability Appraisals: They are essential for national legislation that includes environmental, social and economic concerns.

Job Performance Appraisals: These appraisals are needed for performance rankings. They help in decision making regarding promotion, confirmation, transfer and salary fixing. These appraisals also give feedback regarding behavior of subordinates. This information helps in training, recognizing the skill of workers, their deficiencies and growth. These also play an important role in counseling subordinates. It also gives an insight into the behavior of employees.

The purposes of performance appraisals are:

Creating and maintaining a satisfactory performance.

Contributing to employee growth and development through training and management programs.

Proper understanding of subordinates.

Guidance to employees regarding jobs

Facilitate fair compensation based on performance and interview techniques.

Providing information regarding retrenchment.

Evaluating the work of individuals is a regular feature of companies. The appraisals made can be formally structured or an informal process. Both qualitative and quantitative aspects of job performance are evaluated during appraisals. Performance appraisal here means evaluating the amount of work and effort the individual has put in and is not evaluating the result. Performance appraisals give an insight into the employee’s weakness and strengths. Job evaluation is the amount of profit the organization is deriving by assigning the job and determines the range of pay while performance appraisal is evaluating how well the job is being done by the employee.

The content to be appraised has to be decided by a company before the program is approved. This is done on the basis of a job analysis. Appraisals help the employer to understand and improve his employee.

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Nowadays, a great significance is being given to Performance Management, as companies incorporate them in their effective management strategies. However, a lot of people find this process a complicated one, mostly because of the many options that it offers ? on the organization, a specific department/branch, a product or service, and on employees, among others.

In order to minimize this confusion, the items below will give you a general idea of what Performance Management is all about as well as the activities that are involved in this process.

What is Performance Management?

Performance management is a process that provides both the manager and the employee (the person being supervised) the chance to determine the shared goals that relates to the overall goals of the company by looking into employee performance.

Why is it important?

Performance Management establishes an outline for employees and their performance managers to assess and to come to an agreement on certain concerns and aims that are in accordance with the overall structure of the company. This enables both parties to have clear objectives that would help them in their work and in their professional growth.

Who conducts Performance Management?

Performance Management is carried out by those who oversee the performance of other people ? work/team leaders, supervisors, managers, directors, or department chairs.

What are the processes involved?

Below are the phases of the Performance Management process:

1. Planning

This phase of Performance Management process includes establishing job descriptions and identifying the employee’s essential functions as well as defining the strategic plan/s of the department or the company as a whole.

Job Description

A job description is used to advertise a vacant position, which typically specifies the following:

- The specific functions, tasks, and responsibilities of the position
- The amount of time needed to act upon each function
- The qualifications needed (skills, knowledge and abilities) to perform the job
- The physical and mental requirements of the position
- Salary range for the position
- To whom the position reports

Job descriptions should be disclosed to the employee as soon as he or she is hired. Note, however, that job descriptions are listed using words that make it difficult to measure the employee’s performance. They are in contrast with competencies, which list the skills needed in performing such tasks and are described using terms that can be measured.

Strategic Plan

In effect, a strategic plan tells you three things:

- Where the company is heading in the coming year/s.
- How the company is going to get there.
- How the company will know if it is already there or not.

Included in a strategic plan are the following:

Mission statement ? the primary reason why your department (or company) exists.

Goals ? associated with the mission statement, they determine the results that will advance said statement/s.

Strategic initiatives ? specifies definite steps that must be taken to accomplish each goal. It is a dynamic process, usually examined during periods such as one or two years.

2. Developing

This phase of Performance Management process includes developing performance standards, which offers a scale that describes how a specific job should be performed in order to meet (or exceed) expectations. They are explained to newly hired employees and are later used to evaluate work performance.

Performance standards are generally outlined with the help of the employees who actually perform the tasks or functions. There are a number of advantages with this approach:

- The standards will be suitable to the requirements of the job
- The standards will be applicable to actual work conditions
- The standards will be easily understood by the employee (and performance manager as well)
- The standards will be acknowledged (and received) by the employee and the performance manager

Standards of performance are usually in the form of ratings (1 to 5, A to E) that are used by performance managers to rate the employee’s actual level of performance.

3. Monitoring

This phase of the Performance Management process includes monitoring employee’s work performances and giving feedback about them.

As the basis of feedback, observations should be verifiable: they should involve noticeable and work-related facts, events, behaviors, actions, statements, and results. Feedback of this type is called behavioral feedback, and they help employees improve and/or sustain good performance by precisely identifying the areas that the employee needs to improve without judging his or her character or motives.

4. Rating

This phase includes conducting performance evaluations. This is the critical aspect of the Performance Management process, especially because it is important for performance managers to arrive at an unbiased assessment.

A performance appraisal form has the following features:

- Employee information
- Performance standards
- Rating scale
- Signatures
- Employee performance development recommendations
- Employee comments
- Employee’s Self-appraisal

Why conduct performance appraisals? It provides an opportunity to improve performance in the future not only for employees, but for managers as well. Performance appraisals enable managers to acquire information from employees that will help them make employee’s jobs more productive.

5. Development Planning

This phase of the Performance Management process includes establishing plans for improved employee performance and development goals. This advances the overall goal of the company and at the same time increases the quality of work by employees by:

- Encouraging constant learning and professional growth.
- Helping employees maintain the level of performance that meets (and exceeds) expectations.
- Improving job – or career-related skills and experience.

In closing, Performance Management is a process that, when executed fairly and effectively, can improve the quality of the company’s workforce, raise standards, increase job satisfaction, and develop professionalism and expertise that would benefit not only the employees but the entire organization as well.

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Appraisals have a pretty bad reputation in many organizations. Managers dread having to give them and employees hate having to take them. But by simply focusing on 7 high-value components of appraisals, you can turn them into one of the most important activities you perform? and start to love them. Here are those 7 features.

1. Re-state The Key Areas. Appraisals give managers and employees the chance to re-state the key result areas of the job. These are, quite simply, what people are paid for. For a manager, they might be: Production; Quality; Costs; Safety; Staff. For an engineer, they might be Repair; Maintenance; Installation; Improvements. An appraisal is like the follow-up to a recruitment interview. Just as the recruitment interview at the start of employment looks at the key areas of a job and the person’s skills in these areas, so the appraisal at regular intervals throughout employment looks at how key areas have changed and whether the employee’s skills need to change with them.

2. Check How They’re Doing. Taking time out to review past performance is a necessary step in making plans for the future. Instead of continuing as before, review enables us to stop, think and re-assess. It should be part of any management process. Professor Hal Leavitt, of Chicago University, says that performance improves in relation to the amount and accuracy of feedback received, whether good or bad. When you don’t know how well you’re doing, you often assume the worst, your confidence drops and down goes your performance.
“The golfer who doesn’t count his shots is only there for the walk.”

3. Exchange News. Appraisals that are timed carefully to fit in with the organisation’s business cycle can use the appraisal interview to exchange information with individuals. This could be about…
? the big picture: how the organisation has been performing in the period of the review and how it hopes to do in the future
? significant changes that may affect the organisation and individuals
? opportunities for the organisation in the market place
? detailed plans that affect the employee.
Exchanging information about the organisation and the part employees play in it has both practical and motivational value.

4. Recognise Good Work. Managers often spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with problems and problem staff. Appraisals allow them to re-dress the balance and recognize the quiet heroes in their team. To find the quiet heroes on your team, ask yourself…
Who is rarely absent?
Who never says “No”?
Who enjoys pressure?
Who delivers on time?
Who takes up the slack?
Who doesn’t pester for help?
Who is so unassuming you forget they’re there?
Who quietly lends others a hand?
Who smoothes conflicts and builds morale?
Who carries on even when the boss is not around?
Who shuns the limelight?
Who never takes the credit?

5. Build People’s Confidence. The appraisal process is an opportunity to give people insight into the things they do well. This in turn focuses on their strengths and builds their confidence. To get people thinking about their strengths, ask the following questions:
“What’s gone really well this year?”
“What have you enjoyed doing most of all?”
“What have been the best moments?”
“What have you found most satisfying?”
“What things have you picked up quickest?”
“What would you like to spend more time on?”
“Where do you think your strengths lie?”
We can do no greater service as appraisers than awaken people to their true potential.

6. Develop The Boss-Subordinate Relationship. Surveys show that we have a very low level of regular contact with our bosses: 7% to 11% on average which is about half a day a week. Yet, the boss-subordinate relationship is the pivotal relationship that determines how well we perform. When the relationship is bad, performance is likely to be bad and when it is good, performance is likely to be good. The appraisal is therefore an important chance to do some maintenance work on this relationship.

7. Plan The Future. If review follows action in the management cycle, then new plans should follow review. The plans made at the end of a performance appraisal can include…
? plans for immediate action by either the manager or employee
? problem-solving plans to deal with blocks to progress
? project plans based on areas the employee wants to develop
? development plans based on identified potential
? career plans based on matching employee development and organisational opportunities
? lifetime plans.
Appraisal can be the spark that ignites enthusiasm for what is possible. It is what the appraising manager leaves in his or her wake.

For employees, appraisals are big events in their lives. It is the one time in the year when they are center-stage. Practise these 7 steps and you will make their day a red-letter one.