Performance Appraisal: Your Job Performance Reviewed

A performance appraisal is a review of employee's work performance that more organizations are attempting to carry out because they believe it is something that they should be doing, so you can expect to have an appraisal before long if you haven't already had one.

This page tells you how to get the most out of your annual job performance appraisal meeting.

Where Do Competencies Fit In?

Your competencies are understood to be the skills, strengths and abilities that people possess which define their ability to perform their job and related tasks at the required level. Therefore the descriptive phrases may be written into a job profile by an employer, accompanied by the level at which the job should be performed. It follows that if you can match your own set of competencies to the set described in a job profile AND meet the performance level, then you would be a very suitable candidate for employment.

This list will help you to identify the common competencies needed for most jobs:

• Negotiating skills
• Technical skills
• Financial knowledge
• Decision making capability
• Analytical and problem solving skill
• Initiative and drive
• Flexibility / adaptability
• Written communication skills
• Oral communication skills
• Customer orientation
• Teamworking
• Organizational ability.

In the main, these are inherent abilities which are natural dispositions within your own personal characteristics but are capable of being developed.

The partial exception to that is in the technical skills area which may be very specific to the job and so at higher levels are more likely to be learned skills. Top Tips For Your Appraisal.

These competencies are usually rated using scales like this:

1. = Exceptional
2. = Strong
3. = Fully Competent
4. = Continued Development
5. = Poor
6. = Not Applicable

Generally, the aims of a performance appraisal are to:

• Give employees feedback on their performance
• Identify any relevant employee training needs
• Document the basis used to decide and provide salary increases or rewards
• Establish a basis for personnel decisions such as promotions or discretionary bonuses, etc.
• Provide an opportunity to identify organizational priorities
• Facilitate meaningful communication between employee and employer

Do you know what a 360 Degree Appraisal is all about? Find out here: 360 Degree Appraisal

How To Discuss Your Performance...

The performance appraisal or review should provide an opportunity for the individual employee and his/her line manager to get together to engage in a two-way dialogue about the individual’s performance, career development and any support required from the manager to improve both job performance and to address staff retention concerns.

You can now download the "Phrases for Performance Appraisals Guidebook" and use the exact phrases that professionals use to write their concise and powerful appraisals

The information you gain from your annual appraisal is also very helpful when putting a new CV together. Here are some tips for a technical engineer CV.

Performance appraisals usually provide an opportunity to look back at past behaviour and so consider prior performance. But to be successful they should be more about reaching agreement on what should be done in the future, than just criticising past performance.

In the conventional performance appraisal or, more usually, annual review process, the manager prepares a review of the performance of a staff member and in turn the staff member should also be asked to fill out a self-review to to take to the discussions with the supervisor. Follow this link for details of how to construct your own self evaluations before your performance review.

By preparing for the performance review in this way, the employee is able to focus on the key issues which are usually defined in a competency framework unless issues have been raised previously about performance improvement.

Don't Go Unprepared...

However, many employees go into the appraisal meeting without having thought about the review period, and so are unprepared to present their points of view, which can lead to a poor appraisal and may affect their career path adversely.

Employees should prepare by reviewing their work beforehand, identifying any issues they faced in doing their jobs, their job responsibilities, and any job performance expectations set with the manager. More importantly for the employee it is the best time to make sure that the manager is aware of successes and contributions over and above the job description.

Employees need to know how they are doing all year round, not just at appraisal time, so it's in the employees' interests to open up discussions about performance during the year whenever an appropriate opportunity arises.

By taking your chance to inform your manager regularly and seek regular feedback you improve the understanding of what's required by both sides and the appraisal.

You can now download the "Phrases for Performance Appraisals Guidebook" and use the exact phrases that professionals use to write their concise and powerful appraisals

Return to People Management or continue to Leadership for more valuable insights, or go on to read more detailed information about how your work skills can be analyzed and used to your advantage in your employee review or annual appraisal.

You might also want to visit Employee Review for more information about how to analyze your review after its taken place - especially if you don't think it went too well.

You should also read 360 Degree Appraisal and 360 Feedback Information, because you may be involved with these processes at some point.

Learn also how your self confidence has a powerful effect on your appraisal. This is another area where personality tests have been really useful, and that is in the area relating to leadership: identifying potential leadership in yourself and others by understanding leadership styles and personality types.

Understanding your performance issues can also help you understand the principles behind Hay Grading which charts the requirements of a job, termed factors, which are then further sub-divided into "dimensions".

The three universal factors are said to be:

1. Know How

2. Problem Solving

3. Accountability

The idea being that this helps to give you an understanding of the 'shape' of jobs - an understanding of the nature of the work performed and the type of job involved. If you are to be 'Hay graded' its best to understand what is going on.

You can also search this site for more about a performance appraisal, or the whole of the web from here.