The first step in making this assessment is to understand Performance Appraisal as cyclical events. Within a pre-established period, month, quarter, semester, year, etc., HR returns to the process and, little by little, creates a history of the company’s professionals.
Therefore, in order to structure the management processes, it is necessary to choose a model that, with each application of the research, makes the measurement more adequate to extract the information necessary to make decisions . The suggestion is the PDCA cycle.
Plan (Plan)
The first step is process planning, which includes defining the analysis as well as practical issues, schedule, budget, resource allocation, responsible parties, etc.
Do (of)
The second is the execution of the plans, that is, the concrete actions to take what has been established on paper.
Check (check)
The next step is to monitor the progress of activities to ensure compliance with the guidelines and identify errors and successes.
Act or adjust (act or adjust)
The last part of the circuit is to act to correct errors and standardize successes, as well as to feed future plans with information to promote improvements.
Ideally , iterate the management steps during the process Performance Appraisal and between processes. In the first case, there is an attempt to adapt the actions as the unforeseen happens. In the second, lessons learned in one diagnosis are used in the next.
Table of Contents
How to do a performance appraisal of an employee?
Now that you know what it is, what its objectives are, its importance, the main types of Performance Appraisal analysis, and you also know the main model used in the market, it’s time to understand how this whole process happens in practice — in all its details.
Come on?
Plan and set goals
The beginning includes setting expectations , goals , work, responsibilities and tasks . There are different tools to organize this information and the ideal is to divide the planning into stages Performance Appraisal.
From questions with “what”, “why”, “when”, “where”, “who”, “how” and “how much”, it is possible to visualize the information clearly and create an action plan.
In this specific situation, the essential questions are:
- What will be evaluated? Define the purpose of the Performance Appraisal analysis — whether it is to understand the results, means employed, competencies, critical assumptions for success, etc.
- Why will it be evaluated? Establish motivation—whether it’s offering rewards, promoting terminations, planning training , succeeding leadership, advising employees, etc.
- When will it be evaluated? Choose the start and end date on which the Performance Appraisal will be evaluated, as well as the schedule for collecting the information.
- Where will the assessment take place? Choose the sectors and people covered by the process.
- Who will carry out the assessment? Define which people will be responsible for the study and who will be coordinating the process.
- How will it be evaluated? Define the type of analysis and the most suitable method to obtain the necessary information. After that, think about how to give feedback on the results
- How much does the assessment cost? Create a budget with estimated project expenses.
From the outline given by 5w2h, it is important to delve deeper into the topics and apply specific techniques so that the plan takes shape and becomes increasingly clear.
Prepare the evaluation form
The writing of forms is always an association between question and answer . On the one hand, there is the question, criterion or competence to be assessed; on the other, the evaluator’s assertion, grade, or estimate. No wonder, the most common formatting is the table with two main columns.
set standards
Uniformity of forms is essential. Imagine, for example, the migration from self-assessment to 360-degree assessment, if the employee’s Performance Appraisal worsens, is this caused by a change in Performance Appraisal or in the way of measuring?
Pay attention, in this sense, to the conversion of open and closed responses. Sometimes it is necessary to categorize an interview report to define whether the result was positive or negative. The task requires parameters so that the same answer is not good for one and bad for the other. .
Put clear and concise information
The forms cannot generate double interpretation and should favor short sentences to clarify questions and answers. The secret is to stick to the essentials to answer HR questions.
Also remember that the Performance Appraisal diagnosis must be practical and objective.
Divide the questions into categories
A good writing practice is to create categories and break down sub-items for the questions. To appreciate the soft skills of the employee, for example, the form can present a series of specific skills, such as teamwork, communication, resilience, attendance and discipline.
This option is highly recommended in the case of longer evaluations.
Follow the checklist
The elements vary according to the type of analysis and the methodology used. However, this does not prevent the creation of a checklist with the most common items so that you can orient yourself and be able to write a form. See the step by step:
- header: name of the company and department responsible for the analysis.
- title: type of diagnosis chosen (Participatory Assessment by Objectives – APPO, for example).
- Identification of the appraisee : name, position and department of the appraisee.
- Appraiser identification : Appraiser’s name, title and department, if not an anonymous appraisal.
- instructions: brief description of how to perform the analysis according to the chosen methodology.
- questions and answers: indication of the items to be evaluated and the possibilities of answers, usually in two columns.
- Evaluator’s comments : space for the evaluator to make notes on the answers given, if HR deems pertinent.
- evaluation result: indication of a place for later annotation of the result, which can be a grade, an index, mention of approval or disapproval, etc.
- authentication: date, place and signature of the study participants, except in the case of anonymous evaluation in which the ideal is for HR to authenticate.
The form does not have mandatory formatting, and it is up to HR to define the best way to organize and display the information. When in doubt, bet on a table, placing each item mentioned in a line and always allocating the necessary space to enter information.
Choose question types
In addition, the question and answer fields make up the body of the Performance Appraisal form. In practice, this is the part that changes according to the methodology and type adopted in the process.
Collect the information
This is the time to apply the survey by the evaluators within the established schedule. Everything that we brought in the planning and preparation stages of the form will be applied here.
As it is a step that varies a lot depending on the type of methodology and questionnaires adopted, we will not go into much detail — even because if you followed the previous steps, you will have the necessary structure and support to collect the right information and in a smooth way.
Perform documentation
The documentation corresponds, in addition to the forms and reports, to the workflow, which is important to separate the effort already made from the following steps. The objective is that any qualified professional can proceed with the process, consulting the HR records.
Physical, electronic or hybrid support
The first decision to be made concerns the employee environment. The more digitized, the easier it will be to visualize and cross-reference information. Thus, it is important that, at least, the management of the process occurs through software, even if the forms are printed.
archiving
Forms and Performance Appraisal reports are documents of administrative value because they assist in the management of consequences. Therefore, the filing must take place in a place that can be easily consulted later, and the transfer to the archive is carried out when the professional leaves the company.
In this sense, HR management software can solve the problem by centralizing information in a single place. Technology makes the entire Performance Appraisal history available to managers whenever necessary.
Process
The steps to document the Performance Appraisal analysis are relatively simple. Initially, the physical or electronic forms must be made available to the evaluators who, after completing the process, send the reports to HR within the stipulated deadline.
In turn, HR must update the progress of activities, demand the completion of tasks and gather all the information. In the end, it will also be up to the department to choose the format and data to be made available to those evaluated.
Calibrate the assessment
It is natural that some evaluations contain small mistakes, criteria weight problems and others, especially when applied for the first time. Therefore, it is essential to submit the reports to an evaluation committee for the criteria used.
This committee may be composed of other team leaders, depending on their type, or members of the Human Resources team itself. The idea is that people who were not directly involved in the preparation of the questionnaire and its application have a moment to analyze the results and point out what is not coherent.
Give Feedback
The return on the Performance Appraisal obtained must be sufficient to recognize the work well done and generate self-criticism about the points for improvement. No wonder, feedback planning is as important as the assessment itself. Take the following precautions!
Bet on visual elements
The starting point is to give the report a format that increases the professional’s understanding of his own performance. Today, even in the simplest software, such as text editors, it is possible to quickly transform a form into graphs and Performance Appraisal curves.
Be specific
Feedback should point out the positives and negatives exactly, without generalizations. Also, beware of statements that can be taken personally and look for options to help improve Performance Appraisal, if applicable.