Tweet

How To Run A Staff Appraisal

Written by: Sean McPheat

Article Overview: Running staff reviews are tough! Here are some top tips on how to run them more effectively.

How To Run A Staff Appraisal

One of the most difficult tasks a manager’s has to perform is that of staff appraisal. Many management training programs and manager training courses conduct separate classes on this. Staff appraisal is like skating on thin ice. The result of a staff appraisal rarely satisfies the staff and the management. So, how to run a staff appraisal? At the outset it is important to remember that agreeing to the objectives of staff appraisal as well as making effective use of staff appraisal can improve the performance of your business. It can of course, also help in assessing the performance of your employees. Employees usually prefer a structured appraisal system which recognizes their work.

Management training program will tell you that in order to monitor and assess an employee it is necessary and useful to set out clear objectives for the employees. This way the employees also know what is expected from them. A well designed system of appraisal can help you in assessing your staff against these very objectives. It is a chance to give good constructive feedback as well as praise them for their good work. It is also a chance to further clarify the objectives of the company and the employees.

There are four key areas where you should concentrate on for a staff appraisal. According to management training courses these key areas are: setting objectives, managing performance, carrying out the appraisal, providing reward or solutions. Set clear objectives and give them the training, tool etc., necessary to perform well. Monitor the performance of the employees and discuss the results with them. Depending on the results of an appraisal give a promotion or rewards for good performance. Offer solutions for poor performance.

A very common doubt for management is how often one should conduct an appraisal. For a new employee appraisal may be done after a set period. For others it can be done once or twice a year. Whatever performance testing system or appraisal system that you are putting up should be informed to the staff in writing.

Management training often distinguishes between goal and objectives. Goals are meant for companies whereas objectives are for individuals. For instance the goal for the company might be to increase sales by some percentage over a year. The objective for the employee may be to bring in one client every month for that year. Make sure the objectives are useful. For this you can use the smart system i.e. Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time based objectives. There are certain things that are not measurable. Then try to score their capability on a score of say 1 to 5 to measure their performance. In such cases the objective of an employee is to achieve a higher score.

An appraisal is usually carried out by an employee’s line manager. Some management training programs and management training courses feel that the results should also be shown to the management. Another method is when a mixture of employees who have some contacts with the appraised employee, give in written feedback. These can include line manager, colleagues, subordinates etc. When making the appraisal the performance for the whole period should be taken into consideration rather than just the immediate past. Enough time should be allotted for the appraisal meeting. Make the opening with positive comments. Make sure the employee understands the next steps. The discussion should be two way and in situation should it become a conflict. The employees should be given a written copy of the appraisal and they should be given a right to appeal if they don’t agree with the appraisal.

According to people who conduct management training a good appraisal should motivate your employees. Good performances should be rewarded but the question of reward should not be related to performance in the appraisal interview. A separate meeting should be conducted to consider the reward. But reward programs should be monitored carefully as it might cause friction among the employees. Bonus, pay increase, giving company shares are all various types of rewards that can be given.

Related Articles
  360 Degree Appraisals
  What have I learned in 6 months of management? Part 3
  No worries mate!
  Getting the Performance Appraisal Right
  Top Reasons To Get a Business Appraisal

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Social media - which is more effective social media networking; Facebook or twitter? follow me at My Secret Staff cathy secretstaff05
Re: Trade Show Success Strategies - As a frequent attendee and participant in trade shows, I've found the following tips to be useful: 1) Staff in the booth must be trained to listen to the needs of the visitor, record those interests and if appropriate, commit to getting back to that person within a short time frame. Capture those leads and act on them! 2) The booth needs to be 'busy' - hustle is eye catching and generates interest 3) Homogeneity (common dress) facilitates the visitor to find someone to speak to 4) 'Freebees' need to be selectively handed out and when they are, there must be a personal conection to them (e.g. "You'd like one of our 'whatevers' - we're running a little short right now but here, please take mine")
Cafe Expenses - Hi Michele I used to work in a place that had a cafe that broke even every month. This is due to the fact that we couldn't get enough people through buying food and drinks to make a profit and the expenses consisted of: - Staff wages - Not selling all food so it would go to waste - Rent for occupying the premises - Selling products that had a low turn over - Customers would never come back a 2nd time due to the location I would imagine a restaurant would be the same with the hardest part attracting people every night to make a profit while setting your prices at the right price to keep people coming back.
Facebook and Beacon - What Do You Think - This landed in my inbox. Any thoughts???? Personally, I think they really overstepped the bounds of maintaining personal privacy with this one. Facebook Signals Changes With Beacon David A. Utter | Staff Writer The ringing outcry against Facebook Beacon, which posted people's online purchases to their friends' News Feeds, led to Facebook altering the program. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's aggressive move into referral advertising through the Beacon technology ran into a brick wall of user discontent. After days of complaints that spread throughout the media world, Facebook has changed their Beacon policies. "Users now have more control over the stories that get published to their Mini-Feed and potentially to their friends' News Feeds," the company said. Other details of the changes have been published in the Beacon FAQ available to Facebook members: "If you are logged in to Facebook and visit a Beacon Affiliate, an action you take (like writing a review or purchasing an item), may trigger that website to want to publish a story to Facebook. Before that happens, a notification will display in the lower right corner of your screen. If you click "No Thanks"...no stories or information will be published anywhere on Facebook. If you click "Close" or ignore the story, the story will be sent to Facebook, but not yet published." The previous version of Beacon would go ahead and publish details of a purchase or other conversion activity on a participating website directly to the Facebook user's Mini-Feed, which would then appear on the News Feeds of friends tracking that Mini-Feed. Some people complained that the notification appearing on a Beacon partner site of the pending publication did not appear. Facebook said people were leaving pages before the notification dialogue could be fully displayed, and they have changed the process to confirm the full notification has been shown to the person. Chris
Crafting a script - Hi Andrew This is actually a pretty big topic. And it's so unfair to dump it on you because I've seen even experts mess up a telephone strategy. The trick is to develop a reason for calling that really is to the callee's benefit. If you can do that, and if you have a good backup document, you can often get an excellent appointment hit rate right from the first, ice-cold call. I don't generally recommend going for the appointment on the first call because here are the average stats for appointments on a call cycle of every 60-90 days: 1st call, less than 1% will agree to see you 2nd call, maybe 3-5% will see you 3rd call, maybe 7% will see you 4th call, maybe 60% or more will see you So if you go pushing for appointments too soon in the call cycle, you could well be turning them against you and ruining that beautiful 60% later on. Here's an example of a strategy that I did for a client - a recruitment agency, just recently. I discovered just by chatting to employers and hr managers (I asked them what their biggest staff challenge was) that they lived in fear of staff quitting on them. Staff retention was their biggest issue. So the spiel went "I'm calling because we've noticed that staff poaching is a bit of a problem in Perth right now, and that's not helping us either. That's why our MD is visiting local businesses to explain a simple strategy you can put in place to help stop poaching. He's going to be in Xville next Thursday afternoon, and again on Friday afternoon - which is best for you?" If they said they didn't want to have a meeting the spiel continued "Oh that's fine, of course I know you're busy. Would you like me to just email the report to you instead so you can read it when you've got time?" Most people said yes, they'd like the report. And of course the report contained a strong call to action (to have the MD visit). Lots of times even when they'd said no to the telemarketer, they called back to make the appointment after all. This is what I mean by a strategy, it's not just a call by itself. This particular strategy got an appointment rate of 3:7 calls. Pretty good for ice-cold. Three provisos with this: 1 The reason for your visit, and the content of the backup info, must be critically relevant to a crushing need your client has 2 You need to have a mature professional making these calls, not a teenybopper who sounds like they're just out of school 3 When you do go out to that appointment, make absolutely sure you deliver on what they're expecting -- if you turn it into "bait and switch" you'll lose them forever. Give them even more than they were hoping for. Hope that helps, and good luck. Best wishes Christine


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Top 5 Qualities in an Outsourcing Company

Angel Investors Where Are You?

Induction – your first management job

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.