The employee appraisal process is a vital component of any productive workplace. There’s no way around this critical task, and as long as human beings drive the workplace, the process will involve a human element that can never be fully automated. HR managers, directors, and department heads will always need to spend a few hours carefully considering the accomplishments and contributions of each employee, and this process will always involve face-to-face meetings, thoughtful self-evaluations, and individually tailored goal-setting. But there are some aspects of the review process that can easily be handed over to cutting-edge HR management software applications. Before you face a few of these annual headaches this year, consider a technology upgrade that can save time, reduce errors, and help you manage data more efficiently.
Headache 1: Quantification
No matter what criteria you use to evaluate your employees, these criteria need to be measurable, comparable, consistent, and fair. Certain aspects of the review can remain open ended or qualified by written comments, but at least half of your evaluation criteria should be quantifiable and should be recorded on a numeric scale. If you haven’t shaped your evaluation process around this model yet, you do not need to invent the wheel alone. HR management applications are available that can help you identify measurable criteria and areas of focus that apply to your specific business model. emPerform’s online appraisals allow companies to use numeric or text rating scales that can be translated to numbers for reporting.
Headache 2: Data Comparison
Even when it’s easy to recognize, employee merit can be difficult to compare across broad populations. Performance that seems poor or exceptional may present a different impression when compared side by side with that of equally experienced employees engaged in the same task. How good is good? What are your standard learning curves? If an employee enters the company at a slow productivity level, how fast should she be expected to advance? How does an individual employee’s error rate measure against an established standard? Don’t struggle with these calculations yearly when the right HR management software tool can help.
Headache 3: Inefficient Record Keeping
In addition to comparing performance numbers across broad populations, you’ll need to compare each employee’s current performance with records. This will help you gain an understanding of individual and standard rates of progress. You can also use advanced record-keeping software to compare numbers across other data sets. For example, if productivity growth in a sector is slow, are the employees to blame, or does the manager bear responsibility? Accurate long-term record keeping can help you identify problems at the source, but only if your data is kept timely and relevant – impossible feats with spreadsheets and manual record keeping.
If you would like to avoid appraisal season headaches, contact emPerform and get a first-hand look at how an automated performance management solution can help you overcome appraisal pains, save time, reduce errors, and help you manage data more efficiently.
