Performance Appraisal

Performance appraisal is the process of obtaining, analyzing and recording information about the relative worth of an employee. The focus of the performance appraisal is measuring and improving the actual performance of the employee and also the future potential of the employee. Its aim is to measure what an employee does.

Performance appraisal is the systematic, periodic and an impartial rating of an employee's excellence in the matters pertaining to his present job and his potential for a better job." Performance appraisal is a systematic way of reviewing and assessing the performance of an employee during a given period of time and planning for his future.

It is a powerful tool to calibrate, refine and reward the performance of the employee. It helps to analyze his achievements and evaluate his contribution towards the achievements of the overall organizational goals. The objectives of performance appraisal include reviewing the performance of the employees over a given period of time, judging the gap between the actual and the desired performance, helping the management in exercising organizational control, strengthening the relationship and communication between superior subordinates and management employee's, diagnosing the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals so as to identify the training and development needs of the future, providing feedback to the employees regarding their past performance, providing information to assist in the other personal decisions in the organization, providing clarity of the expectations and responsibilities of the functions to be performed by the employees, judging the effectiveness of the other human resource functions of the organization such as Recruitment, Selection, Training and Development and reducing the grievances of the employees.

By focusing the attention on performance, performance appraisal goes to the heart of personnel management and reflects the management's interest in the progress of the employees. Performance appraisals of employees are necessary to understand each employee's abilities, competencies and relative merit and worth for the organization. Performance appraisal rates the employees in terms of their performance.