What is performance appraisal?

Performance appraisal is a way or method of assessing and evaluating the job performance of an employee, which is also sometimes referred to as the employee appraisal or review.

When you work with a company, there will be time where you start wondering how you are being rated by your organization in carrying out your duty.

Are you doing good or otherwise? Is your performance at par with your other colleagues? Does it grant you a 3-month bonus this fiscal year? The performance appraisal is one of the ways to know if you’re doing particularly well or not.

Performance appraisal is done on periodical basis and depending on the organization, it can be done on monthly, quarterly, bi-quarterly or yearly basis.

Traditionally, performance appraisal is done with the supervisor or the manager making his or her evaluation on the employee, and later submitted to the higher level management. Sometimes, the employees do not even have the opportunity to view what was written about them. They can probably take a wild guess when end of the year comes with a fat bonus paycheck, a handsome salary increment rate, or other windfalls. When they get nothing, they know what their future holds.

As the time goes by, new and more robust method of performance appraisals have been introduced. This includes a 360-degree appraisal which not only requires the manager appraising his subordinates but also the other way round, which is having the subordinate to evaluate his performance as a boss. While this new method in some way hurts the ego of the manager, it is now starting to gain popularity as it provides a more balanced and fair approach when it comes to delivering judgment to your peers.

Self appraisal is another type of performance appraisal which is growing in authority today. Self appraisal involves the employee making evaluation on his or her own job performance and at the end of the day, making elaboration why he deserves such and such. Contrary to what you might be thinking, self appraisal does not make the job of making you look good any easier because every single evaluation needs to come with its own justification, especially when you feel that you deserve a positive appraisal.

Whichever method your company uses in evaluating your job performance, make use your appraisal as a consistent reference that you will always refer in the future and make improvements as the time passes by. Utilize it as a yardstick to measure where you are now, and where you want to go next in your career development.