Essay: The role of appraisals

The main role of appraisals is to maintain organizational performance, as well as the individual performance in order to identify the main issue within the organization. CIPD research (2009) showed that more than 80% of HR practitioners carry out performance appraisal which indicates that half of those people are actually satisfied with the results. Redman & Wilkinson (2009) specified that it’s not recently that studies have explicitly focused on performance issues and the data has been available and shown a positive relationship between the presence of HR practice and organizational performance in other words
Communication
Paul J Meyer quoted “Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success”. It is noticeable that communication is at the core of an appraisal. Asopa & Beye (1999) noted that ccommunication can be either upward or downward. Downward communication is from upper management levels to lower levels, and passes on a judgement of how the employees are doing and how they might do even better. As the information flows downward, it becomes more individualized and detailed. Upward communication is from lower to higher levels. With this process, employees can communicate their needs, aspiration, and goals. When appraisal process is being carried out, its role is to discussed and reach to an agreement regarding any staff development issue that may arise.
The process itself is valuable as it’s potentially provides a forum for an exchange of information between a supervisor and subordinate the way which the process is conducted is critical to the success of performance management. The process also provide motivation and encouragement which will facilitate staff being able to identify with the performance system, however if not handled inappropriately it may alienate staff from the process and have a demotivating effect Cornelius (2001)
Motivation
Decenzo & Robins (1999) stated that “just because employees have the ability to do the job does not ensure that they will perform satisfactory”. Organizations have Performance appraisal system to find out what motivate employees and how to keep them motivated. Decenzo & Robins (1999) described motivation as “the willingness to do something, where this something is conditioned by its ability to satisfy some need for the individual”. People who are motivated exert a greater effort to perform some task than those who are not motivated regardless referring to performance appraisal the roles here is to established based on performance whose is doing their requested task
Performance is a vital component of the motivation model
Identifying training & development opportunities
Training and development safeguards such productivity as well as supporting it, by preparing employees for future jobs and insulting firm from skills shortages Redman & Wilkinson (2009).
Identify poor performance
Setting and Measuring Goals. Goal setting has consistently been demonstrated as a management process that generates superior performance. The performance appraisal process is commonly used to make sure that every member of the organization sets and achieves effective goals.
3 Issues with performance appraisal
Nerveless when dealing with performance appraisal there are few issues that the organisation need to consider
Time consuming
The issue with performance appraisal is that it its time consuming, and can also be a complete waste of time if it’s not done right, especially for managers as it involves too much paperwork. Recent research suggested that “over a third of UK workers (37%) believe appraisals are a waste of time and do not contribute towards their personal career development at all”. The research also noted that while a third of employees dedicate one-day work a year to appraisals, many see it as a pointless exercise Newcombe.T (2012). This is because most employees now feels like they are not benefiting from appraising their own performance.
It’s takes time understanding the process, if the process is not carried out effectively, it could become a tick a box exercise that wastes time for organizations and fails to contribute towards real career development for employees. HR magazine (2015) statistic shows that 95% of managers are dissatisfied with their performance management systems, this can because the appraisal process and development takes a long process and by the
It can be stressful_ common errors such as halo and leniency can be minimized in work place where supervisors can practice observing and rating behaviors Decenzo & Robins (1999)
4 Improve the process of performance appraisals
It’s been simplified that most organizations have performance management system in store, but just because they have the system it does not mean the organization will improve, in order to improve they have to adopt an approach towards their employees.
Follow up: After the appraisal assessment has been carry out, line managers must follow up on the performance recommendations for example if an employee has been recommended more training, they should start training immediately without any delays. As well as trying out different types of performance assessment, by taking surveys in result of finding out the most effective approach to follow. Organizations must ensure that all the employees are subject to an evaluation, employees will feel more commented to the assessment process if the supervisors, line managers take part in the performance. This could improve the process if everyone in the organization is involves and interact with each other.
The best way for an employer to know if their workers are motivated is to ask them on the contrary appraisal is a way employers communicate with their stuff, during the assessment it is also input that the employee is asked what their inputs are good enough to keep them and others motivated by doing so they will feel that they are contributing to the team and the business, and most importantly, being listened to and the company can also introduce a drop in box for everyone to put in recommendations to how they can improve the company and its performance.
Motivating Greater Performance: This is another common reason for having a performance appraisal, helps motivate people to deliver superior performance in several ways. The appraisal process will help the employees learn just what it is that the organization considers to be superior. And now that most people want to be seen as superior performers, a performance appraisal process provides them with a means to demonstrate that they actually are. Performance appraisal encourages employees to avoid being identified as inferior performers.
Encouraging Coaching and Mentoring: Coaching is an informal approach to an individual’s development based on close relationship with another person who is of expertise to company thus acting as an immediate manager Brockbank & McGill (2006). Managers are expected to be good coaches to their team members and mentors to their employees. Performance appraisal identifies the areas where coaching is necessary and encourages managers to take an active coaching role. Whitmore (2009) pointed that coaching is a continuous occurrence in an organization. Coaching enable employees to improve their performance and motivation through ongoing dialogues with the coach as a result strengthening relationship which reinforce comment amongst employees and the organization due to a favourable working environment Passmore (2010). CIPD (2012) conducted a research based on coaching which showed that about 43% of organizations used coaching to improve poor performance, it’s also been suggested that 47% of organisation used coaching to build good performance
Improving Overall Organizational Performance. This is the most important reason for an organization to have a performance appraisal system. A performance appraisal procedure allows the organization to communicate performance expectations to every member of the team and assess exactly how well each person is doing. When everyone is clear on the expectations and knows exactly how he is performing against them, this will result in an overall improvement in organizational success.
Provide Counselling for poor performers. Not every employee meets the organization’s standards. Performance appraisal forces managers to confront those whose performance is not meeting the company’s expectations so they will be recommended training to improve their performance.