Writing Good Performance Appraisals

Performance appraisals of individuals, groups, and organizations are a universal practice in all societies. Performance appraisal is a process of evaluating the behavior of employees in an office, usually including both qualitative, and quantitative aspects of job performance. Performance indicates how efficiently a person is fulfilling the job demands.

An appraiser may be any individual who observes the worker while performing a job. The appraiser is expected to have complete knowledge of the job content, the contents to be appraised, and standards of the contents. The appraiser has to make reports and judgments without being partial. Supervisors, peers, and subordinates are usually the appraisers. In many cases, the employees themselves, users of service, and consultants also perform the appraisals. There may be some managers who do not want to write about the bad performance of an employee. Hence, when writing a performance appraisal, it has to be made sure it does not lack objectivity because if it does, it will have more personal than professional views, which can prove to be detrimental for the employee. Moreover, appraisals alone should not be made the central point because then there is a risk of creating tension and anxiety among employees. In simple words, there should be no surprises in an appraisal.
A well-written appraisal is in fact, a synopsis of what has been happening in the organization on a continuous basis. A good appraisal when written needs to be fair, objective, and two-way. Performance appraisal also has to realistic, clear, continuous, and specific. A good performance appraisal does not compare employees with each other because it can damage their morale and create competition among employees and they may not be able to function as a team. Performance appraisals should have an element of improvement and not blame in them, as appraisals are meant to improve performance. The content of performance appraisals vary depending on an employee's position in the organization. All employees and jobs are assessed keeping in mind their individual caliber and job profile.

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