Consequences of Performance Appraisal in Organizations - Essay Example

What exactly are the consequences of performance appraisal in organizations and how does it contribute to organizational or individual performance? Name Professor Institution Course Date What exactly are the consequences of performance appraisal in organizations and how does it contribute to organizational or individual performance? Performance appraisal is a process that an organization uses to gather information useful in decision making regarding different personnel aspects. Performance appraisal includes analyzing, recording and obtaining information about the relative worthiness of an employee to the organization (Kerwick 2013). The results obtained from the study are used to implement a process that is credible and reinforces the desired organizational directions. Performance appraisal is being used for employee evaluation at various levels of performance in particular assigned jobs as per the supervisor’s expectations and set standards. Additionally, the process provides the management with information that helps them to identify employee potentials. The organization can desire to affect the employee attitude by the results obtained by the employee through the evaluation cycle. The evaluation cycle provide the employee with clear performance SMART goals. The performance SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time-bound that the employee should work towards achieving. If the employee is performing well, the organization can reward such an employee by job promotion or increase in salary pay. If an employee performance is poor, the organization can choose to train the employee so that the employee can improve in performance (Kerwick 2013). After goal setting in performance appraisal, the supervisor and employee hold a self-appraisal meeting to discuss the employee’s performance so that they can identify potential goals for the upcoming appraisal period (Michelle, Douglas & John 2010). Based on the management, the employees perform their job and the supervisor should a keep note of the employee’s accomplishments and challenges. When a performance appraisal is carried out, a supervisor needs to show the employee how their performance affects the productivity of the organization. The employees should also understand how their performance affects the ability of others employees to do their jobs, and it helps put his job duties into an overall company context. This helps improve the notion of teamwork among the staff and can also encourage the cooperation to achieve corporate goals. After employee evaluation, employees with high scores become motivated and are likely to perform well and increase organizational productivity (Michelle et al 2010).An employee with a positive feedback makes himself feel like a worthy contributor in the organization hence encouraging them to perform better in the future. This employee can also be used by the organization to train other employees so as to ensure maximum performance in the organization. Sometimes employee performance appraisal can affect the quality and teamwork in the employees, who might lead to competition against one another. This kind of competition can turn up unhealthy thus affecting the overall organization performance. How performance appraisal contributes to individual performance is by motivating the individual to perform better in order to contribute more to the organizations results. Individual employee performance is measured against agreed targets and objectives. Behavior and attitudes can also be used to determine the how an individual will perform. Using targets and objectives an employee is given task to carry out and the supervisor checks to see whether the set objectives and targets were met. If the employee’s targets were not met then the supervisor should find the reasons why and help the employee improve further (DelPo 2007). Feedback can also be used to determine and contribute to individual performance. Feedback is providing information to employees on their performance and progress. It is also used to show what is required to continue to perform well in the future especially if there is any change in the organization programme or evolution of job roles. Giving the employee feedback from the performance analysis will enable him to improve and work hard on the issues collected. This in return contributes to employee’s performance as well as the organization performance improvement. Exchange of views between the supervisor and employee can be used to improve employee’s performance and get the support they need form their supervisors. Individuals during exchange of views are encouraged to share their conclusion about what happened and why. This way the supervisor is able to understand about the employee’s situation and emphasis on how to make the employee improve. Exchange of views can also help the supervisor know what level of support and guidance the employee requires from the manager and tell any aspect of the work where improvement is required and how both of them are going to achieve it(Michelle et al 2010). Positive enforcement is used to emphasize what has been done well and make corrections on what might be improved to enable better performance next time. It is also used to draw out the importance of how things are done. This helps the employee to understand their job role better thus ensuring effort is directed at value-adding activities (DelPo 2007). In general, performance appraisal can benefit organizations and employees by setting goals and their expectations, and by creating an environment of open communication between the supervisors and employees. Best performance appraisal ensures employee improvement and positive feedback, which enable smooth relationship between the management and employees (Lyster & Arthur 2007). Performance appraisal help supervisors to identify strengths and weaknesses of an employee’s performance and how to improve on it. It offers an opportunity for employees and supervisors to discuss the employee’s goals and achievements for himself. They also help discuss the supervisor’s goals for the organization and ways by which the employee and supervisor can work together to further develop skills and strengths to work and run the organization effectively (Wei, Mian & Hai 2012). Good performance appraisals create a link between an individual employee expectations and how the individual work contributes to the company’s success. They also clarify expectations that the manager has for the employee and help the employee improve on his duties. Performance appraisal benefits both the individual and the organization; they increase rapport between the employees and management (Pennock 1992). This increases job satisfaction and improve employee’s performance and sense of loyalty toward the company. Performance appraisal enables the organization to identify further training need for their employees. Training the employees ensures that they have all the necessary skills required to tackle situations in the organization. Training employees in return enables the organization to perform better and improve their quality standards (Park & Berry 2014). Performance appraisal enables the organization to monitor and determine each individual performance. This way the company is able to distinguish best performers form poor performers. The organization can choose to train the poor performers, by doing so this employees can gain skill and improve their performance so as to work well with other well performing employees. This training enables improvement of the organization standards. Performance appraisal also enables the organization to reward and recognize great employee performers. Rewarding the employees enables them to work harder next time and feel appreciated and recognized in the organization (Mmieh, Mordi, Singh & Asiedu-Appiah 2011). Performance appraisal mostly targets the employees of an organization together with their supervisors. Supervisors monitor employee’s progress and set goals, achievements and object to enable employee to perform at their best. It also helps to identify the organization and employees weak points and find ways to improve on them. By doing this, Performance appraisal improves both the working standards of an individual employee as well as the entire organization as a whole(Michelle et al 2010). References Kerwick, M. (2013). Performance appraisal. The Record. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1435422116?accountid=458 .[Accessed 4/11/2014]. Thompson, P. H. (1969). Performance appraisal: some unanticipated consequences. (Order No. 0219736, Harvard University). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 0-1 http://search.proquest.com/docview/302412091?accountid=458. (302412091).[Accessed 4/11/2014]. Michelle, B., Douglas. H., & John, B. (2010). Consequences of the performance appraisal experience, Personnel Review, Vol.39, no.3, pp.375 – 396 Wei Z, Mian Z, & Hai L. (2012) "Performance appraisal process and organizational citizenship behavior", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 27, no.7, pp.732 –752 Park S., & Berry F. (2014).Successful Diffusion of a Failed Policy: The case of pay-for-performance in the US federal government. Public Management Review, Vol.16, no. 6, pp.763-781 Mmieh F., Mordi C., Singh S., &Asiedu-Appiah, F. (2011). Performance Management in Public Sector Enterprises: A Case Analysis of Employees Perceptions in the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). Journal of African Business, Vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 419-438 Pennock, D. (1992). Effective performance appraisals (really!). SuperVision, Vol. 53, no. 8, p.14. Lyster, S., & Arthur, A. (2007). 199 pre-written employee performance appraisals: The complete guide to successful employee evaluations and documentation : with companion CD-ROM. Ocala, Fla: Atlantic Pub. Group. DelPo, A. (2007). The performance appraisal handbook: Legal & practical rules for managers. Berkeley, Calif: Nolo. Read More