Employee Formal Performance Appraisal

One of the most difficult tasks of anyone supervising people is taking the time to carry out a performance appraisal. In one well known municipality in California, an employee never received a formal, written evaluation in 16 years of employment; apparently her supervisor felt that an annual increase in salary was sufficient enough feedback on performance.

An increase in pay, or receiving a bonus, is not an adequate substitute for a formal appraisal of how someone is performing their job.

Neither is saying “keep up the good work” which means nothing to an employee, because there is no point of reference to the statement.

Human resources people in larger organizations usually devise and provide a system consisting of forms and processes for supervisors at every level to implement.

Unfortunately, if the supervisor doesn’t perform the appraisal, doesn’t take the time to sit down to thoughtfully consider the employee as an asset to the organization, there is not much human resources can do about it.

In smaller organizations, forms and processes typically don’t exist. Which is a shame, since most of the people working today work in smaller organizations. The US Small Business Administration (www.SBA.gov) defines this as employers with 500 or fewer employees on the payroll.

Even if formal systems exist, too many supervisors do not want to perform performance appraisals because they do not want to put themselves in the awkward and difficult position of having to criticize an employee.

Think about that for a minute. If you are the manager of a department of say, 12 people, and you have a difficult conversation with an employee who is under performing, what will the environment be like in that particular office following that discussion?

To add one more layer to think about, what if the under performing employee had been on the payroll for more than a few years?

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