How to Review Performance Appraisals
Performance appraisals are used to provide insight on how successfully an employee is performing his job. The manager takes into consideration the job description, the performance measures and how well the employee performed against those measures. The goal is to objectively evaluate an employee's performance and ensure the performance appraisals are consistent across an organization. Learn how to review performance appraisals.
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Instructions
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Look for trends across completed performance reviews. Check for subjective language from the employee and the manager. For example, are the words "never," "always" or "unsatisfactory" overused? Is the employee's input biased to their detriment or their advantage? Is the manager's input harsh, dismissive or overly positive? If the employees input reads, "I always check with the manager before making a personal phone call," question if the employee's input is objective. On the other hand, if the manager's input reads, "The employee never checks with me prior to making a phone call" that should be cause for alarm also.
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Check the job description against the performance review. Answer questions such as, "Did the employee perform the job as outlined?" In this case, the question is not yet how well or how poorly the job was performed. Performance appraisals across similar jobs should contain similar elements. For example, a quality analyst in the finance department and a quality analyst in the customer service department should have process improvement projects as part of their performance reviews. The specifics of the projects will differ but both analysts should follow the same basic process to complete the projects.
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Compare the performance measures for job success to the actual performance of the employee. Did employees in the same department with the same job title were held to the same performance standards? For example, if John was supposed to take 125 customer calls per day then Jake should also be required to take the same number of customer calls.
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Review the performance appraisals to ensure all of the steps were followed. For example, many companies require performance reviews to have the signature of the manager and the employee. Double check to ensure that happened. If each step is not followed, it may cause the performance review to become invalid.
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Tips & Warnings
Do not rush to review the performance appraisals. Allocate enough time to give the performance reviews the proper scrutiny.
