Just about every company does annual, or semi-annual, performance appraisals of employees for various reasons. An appraisal can act as a document companies use to reinforce the decision to let an employee go, and it can also be used to help an employee plan a better career path. Each company has different goals for its performance appraisals, but there are common goals that most companies share when it comes to employee evaluations.
Establishing An Employee’s Progress
The development of an employee is something that takes years and costs a company a great deal of money. Part of the purpose of annual performance appraisals is to establish where the employee is in their development and compare that to where the employee should be.
This is not necessarily done to single out the employee, but rather to find out if a different course of training needs to be followed. The company uses this information to upgrade its training methods and become more efficient at creating productive employees.
Set The Employee On The Right Career Path
It is not unusual for a performance appraisal to uncover an employee who is on the wrong career path. An important part of an employee’s development is to make sure that they are pursuing goals that play into the employee’s strengths and can benefit the company. The performance appraisal is used to determine whether or not the employee is on the right career path and to make any necessary changes to help in the employee’s future development.
Get Employee Feedback
Most companies want to know how their employees feel about their career development and where employees think things could be improved. Employees should not hesitate to give their honest opinions as that is the kind of information the company needs to help improve employee development.
When employees try to give opinions they think the company wants to hear, that can run counter to what the company knows to be true. If the company knows the employee is struggling with their development but the employee contends that they are doing well, then that kind of conflict makes it difficult for employees and companies to work together to develop meaningful career paths.
The data that is collected from employee performance appraisals is used in several different ways. It helps to determine whether or not the employee is still valuable to the company, it indicates whether or not the employee and the company are of the same opinion about the employee’s development and it helps to make the employee’s career path clearer. A performance appraisal must be a completely interactive process if it is to achieve all of the goals the company has set out for it.
Jim Treebold is a North Carolina based writer. He lives by the mantra of “Learn 1 new thing each day”! Jim loves to write, read, pedal around on his electric bike and dream of big things. Drop him a line if you like his writing, he loves hearing from his readers!