What have your experiences been with performance appraisals

What have your experiences been with performance appraisals? Describe some good experiences, if any, you have had with performance appraisals. Describe some bad experiences, if any, you have had with performance appraisals. What are some ways you believe the performance appraisal process could be improved upon? Explain in detail.

Solution

Performance Appraisals are considered to be the most tough job for a manager because the expectation level of employees are high and there is sometimes a communication gap between the manager and the employee and that is the reason the expectation level of the employee and the manager has not been met. I have had four performance appraisals and I have had mixed reactions because there are instances when I have not received what I expected and there has also been instances where I have received far better than what I expected.

My first performance appraisal was a learning experience our organization possess four slabs in which the appraisal is done. The best is Outstanding then Commendable followed by Met expectation and finally Needs improvement the cycle is a yearly cycle and at the end of the cycle there is few rounds of discussion and after that the actual rank is decided. After my first cycle ended I had a discussion with my manager and he was so positive with me and appreciated me a lot for my work that I did and he even said that you have been outstanding in this cycle and I assumed that I will be getting Commendable at least but when the Final rating came I saw it was Met Expectation and I was actually surprised and this was bad for me and I again had a conversation with my manager but now he said that as a fresher you are very good and you are in the right track but you still need to improve.

In my second cycle my manager changed and I had a new manager on the very first discussion I explained him the issues that I experienced and I do not want a similar experience this time. I worked well but not up to the level what I did in my first cycle and I was expecting met expectation this time but again the performance appraisal does not fail to amaze me and I received Outstanding. I was totally not expecting something like this but my manager said that he is satisfied very much and he appreciates my efforts and my ideas. I guess the system should be improved because in both the cycles my manager was not involved in my project and the appraisal was done based on the feedback gathered from my project manager so I think if the project manager is entitled to do the performance appraisal, then it would be better as their will be transparency in the system. The cycle should be divided into two half yearly cycles and there should be a discussion halfway so that the expectations are re defined and both the stake holders are in the same phase.