Performance Appraisal: Need and Features of Performance Appraisal

Performance Appraisal:  Need and Features of Performance Appraisal!

An organisation’s success depends on its employee’s performance. Hence evaluation of the employee’s performance is essential. The process of performance appraisal helps the employee and the management to know the level of employee’s performance compared to the standard level.

In simple terms, performance appraisal may be understood as the assessment of an individual’s performance in a systematic way, the performance being measured against such factors as job knowledge, quality and quantity of output, initiative, leadership abilities, co-operation, dependability etc.

Performance appraisal indicates the level of desired performance, the level of actual performance and the gap between the two. Once the gap is found, it can be bridged through training and development.

Performance appraisal can be defined as “the systematic evaluation of the individual with respect to his or her performance on the job and his/her potential for development.”

Performance appraisal is a formal, structured system of measuring and evaluating an employee’s job, related behaviours and outcomes to discover how and why the employee is presently performing on the job and how the employee can perform more effectively in the future so that the employee, organisation and society all benefit”.

Need For Performance Appraisal:

Performance appraisal is needed for the following reasons.

Evaluation of an employee’s performance helps to take management decisions on features of performance appraisal:

1. Evaluation of an employee’s performance helps to take management decisions on transfers, promotions, increments etc.

2. Performance appraisal helps to ascertain the training and development needs of the employer.

3. Performance appraisal. or an individual’s performance evaluation helps in designing the reward system.

4. The feedback presided after evaluating the performance of an individual acts as a motivator.

5. The Performance appraisal acts as a validation of the selection procedure.

Features of Performance Appraisal:

1. It is the systematic description of an employee’s job relevant strengths and weaknesses.

2. Finding how well the employee is performing the job and establishing a plan of improvement is the basic purpose.

3. Performance appraisal is periodical.

4. Performance appraisal is not job evaluation, but finding how well someone is doing the assignable job.

5. It is a continuous process.