Performance Appraisal
Performance Appraisal is a phrase used to describe the set of procedures by which a consultant or manager employs in examining and evaluating the employees’ work. This is done through comparison with preset standards and the outcome then documented. Finally, the outcome is used to give feedback to the employee to show the facets requiring improvements and the reasons for the same. Simply said, the performance appraisal are essential in determining who requires what training, who will be demoted or promoted and who will be fired or retained (Grote, 1996).
The appraisal that follows is of Kudler’s Foods that seeks to come up with a method of evaluating the performance level of its employees. The positions to be evaluated are the Store Manager and Department Manager (forming the managerial position), Cashier and Bagger (Customer service), the Stock Person (back-end worker) and the Specialty Department Worker (Mid level employee position).
Find your own capabilities or technical expertise in the areas that follow regarding the needs that your current position demands (10=excellent, 7-9=good, 4-6=satisfactory, 1-3=poor). Kindly come or attach evidence where appropriate to support your personal assessment. (NB: Award appropriate point(s) as specified previously on each of the levels below)
1. Commercial judgment
2. product/technical expertise
3. Time management
4. Planning, budgeting and forecasting
5. Reporting and administration
6. Communication skills
7. Delegation skills
8. IT/equipment/machinery skills
9. Meeting deadlines/commitments
10. Creativity
11. problem-solving and decision-making
12. team-working and developing others
13. Energy, determination and work-rate
14. Steadiness under pressure
15. Leadership and integrity
16. Adaptability, flexibility, and mobility
17. Personal appearance and image
18. Corporate responsibility and ethics
Others (for current or new role):
The output of this performance appraisal becomes crucial as regards to rewarding of the best performing employees. Several methods are used in analyzing the outcome of the performance appraisal. In this case, an employee comparison method is going to be used for the analysis. An employee comparison system is a method that is used in comparing employees directly to each other instead of comparing against some standard set of performance. This method serves to give an estimate picture that employees occupy in that organization as regards to their performance. Although it is permissible to classify employees relative to their performance basing on some factors, employee-comparison system tends to rely on global evaluation of the employees.
The simplest method of comparing the employees is the rating based on the rank-order, which needs that the rater rank the employees from the best to the worst. This form of ranking employees is advantageous thanks to the simplicity of its application. Moreover, it is more realistic as most of this ranking make use of the ranking scales that carry with them global impression. In this method, the ranking is facilitated by issuing raters with a pack of cards, where the pack contains a card of each of the employee (Grote, 1996).
The leading demerit of this method is the complexity in keeping track of the performance of the various employees in mind at any given time. This system entails a specified number of raters who keep track of their employees and then amalgamate their list later into a single master list. This is realized by ensuring that all of the raters come together and compare their results. One strategy employed to solve the challenge posed by the large size of employees is the alternation ranking. Here, the rater makes an indication of the best performer and the worst performer, the next best performer and the next worst performer and so on (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995).
The primary advantage of this paired method of comparison is that the rater needs to make a comparison between only two employees instead of one employee against all the rest. However, the principal challenge facing this paired form of comparison to rank employees is the large number of comparison that will have to be made in instances where the number of employees is more than six. This is tedious and confusing. The ultimate goal of this comparison is the rating of the employees basing on the results obtained from their performance appraisal (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995).
The resulting order of ranking is essential in determining which employee deserves salary increment and to what magnitude. In a similar fashion with all the other system of ranking, this system of ranking orders employees according to their performance levels but provides little information about to what extent is one performance better than the other. Furthermore, they make some reasonable distinctions between employees, something that may not be in existence, in the real sense. For appropriate rewarding system, the employee whose performance is outstanding deserves salary increment. However, this salary increment should ensure that the employ remains within the limits of maximum salary that an employee in that job level earns (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995).
In conclusion, performance appraisal is a critical aspect of any organization. Managers need to attain the prerequisite skills to enable them carry out this process in the most effective way possible. The activity is sensitive whose outcome may motivate or demoralize the employees when conducted haphazardly. Moreover, managers should exercise accountability by employing means of ranking employees that are free from prejudices.
References
Grote, R.C. (1996). The Complete Guide to Performance Appraisal. New York, NY: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn
Murphy. K.R. & Cleveland, J. (1995). Understanding Performance Appraisal: Social, Organizational, and Goal-Based Perspectives. New York, NY: SAGE
