APPRAISAL STRATEGY

It is a regular review of an employee's job performance and overall contribution to a

company. Also known as an annual review, performance review or evaluation, or employee
appraisal, a performance appraisal evaluates an employee’s skills, achievements, and
growth--or lack thereof.
Companies use performance appraisals to give employees big-picture feedback on their work
and to justify pay increases and bonuses, as well as termination decisions. They can be
conducted at any given time but tend to be annual, semi-annual, or quarterly.
Company which uses appraisal strategy ex:
 TCS
Companies which are not using appraisal strategy. These companies are following a new
redefined strategy:
 Adobe
 Accenture
 Deloitte
IMPORTANCE OF APPRAISAL DECISION IN A COMPANY:
It helps in improving employee productivity to developing the employees themselves.
It helps in finding the True Potential of The Employee:
Performance appraisal helps the HR department and the company learn about the strengths
and weaknesses of an employee. This process can, therefore, be used to truly learn about the
employee’s interests and potentials. This analysis also helps the HR department to choose the
right employees for a job. The HR department can even suggest the employee switch to a
department that fits them better.
  Acts as a Motivator
Employees crave feedback. When they receive that it can act as a motivator for them.
Knowing their weaknesses can help employees give their best and improve upon the areas
they’ve missed out on. After all this can work as a boost to the entire office or team.
 Focused Employee Training & Development
Planning and development programs are important for any organization. The performance
appraisal can show exactly where a majority of the employee’s lack in terms of training as
well as in development. The HR department can then create programs according to those
gaps. This will be more beneficial for the employees
Feedback to employees: Performance appraisals provide feedback to employees about
quantity and quality of job performance. It assesses the performance of employees of how
well they are doing their jobs and how they might improve their work.
Cons of appraisal strategy:
 Prone To Biasness.
Some raters may rate one depending on the general impression one gives. For instance, one
might be rated high on all criteria even though he/she just performed well in a single area.
The rater’s biases and prejudices also affect the process.
Horn & Halo Effect:
The horn and halo effect is a human tendency to see only the good or the bad in a person. For
example, an employer might just see that the employee is never on time and will rate the
employee low on all the brackets because of that. However, he might not notice that the
employee works for long hours every day and completes the work on time. This can affect an
employee’s overall ratings.
  Spill over Effect:
This refers to human behaviour. It means that while judging the employee for performance
appraisal it is possible that the manager simply marks an employee high because of their past
performances instead of their current ones. They rank the employee by taking into account
the overall overview that they have of the employee.
Consuming Process:
performance appraisal is a time-consuming process. It requires resources, time and costs the
company money. It requires the HR department to create the forms, ask everyone to fill them
as well as analyse the results for specific feedback while going through the correct procedures
The organisation which doesn’t use appraisal system actually benefit in these ways:
many companies don’t use traditional strategies but they came up with a new redefined
strategies and many companies like Accenture, deloitte, Microsoft has removed ratings of
employees and annual meetings for performance appraisals are not held.
 As appraisal strategy is a time consuming. The companies approached real time
feedback survey
 The companies introduced check-ins. These are formal, structured conversations
between managers and direct reports, in which they discuss goal progress, skill
development, and more – so that employees know if they’re moving in the right
direction while they still have time to adjust.
 The employee’s hate to compare their performance with others and these real time
feed back survey helps in setting their goals and achieving their goals
 These check ins and frequent feedbacks helps the companies to get desired results. 6%
percent of fortune 500 companies changed their appraisal strategies with a improvised
version. They realised that performance appraisal methods are not affective in their
perspective.
  The employees are trained effectively and the employees who are capable of
promoting to the next level are seamlessly promoted with out any halo and spill
effect.

In detail appraisal strategy for outlook group which can benefit employees:
Organizations should have the right performance management in place can align their
employees, resources, and systems to meet strategic objectives. It helps in improving
employee engagement and fosters a culture or organizational excellence. New performance
management tools in the market can help employees connect with an organization’s overall
objectives, provide data for workforce analytics, and improve operational excellence.
Performance management solutions are used to manage employee progress, performance, and
development in relation to organizational goals. These platforms give managers the tools they
need to successfully monitor employees’ goals, accomplishments, challenges in a single
database. Outlook should approach these solution providers for seamless appraisal strategy.
The solution providers like i-solved, Glint, Pay bridge etc,
Strategies and methods:

The 360-Degree Appraisal

This method involves giving out a questionnaire with questions regarding  a colleague’s
performance they need to fill it up. The manager can consider this feedback by evaluating the
performance at the end of the quarter/year.
General Performance Appraisal
This method involves continuous interaction between the employee and his manager,
continuous setting of goals and achieving them. Whether the employee has been able to do
justice the entire process or not is evaluated at the end of the year.

Technological/Administrative Performance Appraisal

This appraisal technique concentrates on technical more than any other aspect of performance
on the job as the employees involved have specialized skills. They’re judged on the skills
they possess and the activity they complete.
These methods helps in performing a accurate appraisal strategy and helps employees in
achieving their goals.
Manager Performance Appraisal
A manager’s performance should also be appraised, and this includes not just his/her
performance on the job but also relationship management with clients at his/her disposal.
Generally, anonymous feedback forms are received, which are then considered for appraisal.
5. Employee Self-Assessment
This method is very unpopular among employees as nobody can deal with rating himself or
herself. The self-assessment sheet is compared with the one filled up by the manager and the
differences are discussed.
6. Project Evaluation Review
This method involves performance appraisal of the team members involved at the end of
every project and not at the end of every year. This helps the team and its members develop
with each passing project.
7. Sales Performance Appraisal
A salesperson is evaluated on the basis of his/her sales skills and accomplishment of financial
goals set previously. Goals set in case of sales should be realistic and ways of achieving them
should be decided by the employee and the manager concerned.
Performance Appraisal Techniques
Below are the different techniques of Performance Appraisal:
Graphic Rating Scale
 A graphic rating scale rates employees on a fixed scale as per the qualities they are
required to possess. The final score obtained classifies employees into various tiers
and helps in their performance evaluation at the end of the year. It is understandable
and easily usable. Behaviors can be quantified, and appraisal can be simplified using
this method.
  There are demerits to this method too. Temperament varies from person to person. A
few evaluators can be very strict, and a few can be very lenient based on their fixed
agenda. Though it helps to identify the best and the worst performing individuals, it
does not separate average individuals.
Essay Performance Appraisal Method
 It is also called the “Free Form method.” It includes a fact-based performance
description of employees with instances to support it, and based on this
 It is a qualitative technique and not a quantitative technique. So, evaluation using this
method is difficult. Moreover, one needs to have detailed knowledge regarding the job
and the firm in order to use this method.
Checklist Scale
 A checklist is prepared on the basis of Yes or No with regard to the traits of an
employee. If an employee has a particular trait, then it is marked as yes or else no.
The evaluation of the rater and the actual HR evaluation are two separate things
altogether, and it is not a detailed evaluation.
Critical Incidents
 The manager has to prepare a list of important incidents highlighting the behaviour of
an employee. These incidents help decide the best or the poorest behaviour of an
employee, and s/he is evaluated. The only disadvantage of this method is it can be
very biased.
Work Standards Approach
 The management of a firm establishes fixed standards and the final deliverable
prepared by the team involved has to be as per those points, and then, each member is
evaluated. So, the employee knows his/her job and its terms clearly. It just does not
help in making individualistic appraisals.
Ranking Appraisal
 A manager is required to rank employees put into the same job and then evaluate
them. The employees are ranked chronologically in either increasing or decreasing
order. The problem is it cannot be used on a very large team and its members.
MBO
 MBO (management by objectives) involves setting objectives for the employees on
the job, which they have to accomplish and are further appraised on that
basis. SMART Goals i.e. Goals that are Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant,
and Time-bound are set so that biased can be prevented.
In these appraisal methods company should wisely take a decision to adopt a method which
plays an important role in decision making.