Performance Appraisal: Improving Employee Performance

Performance appraisal is a method of establishing and communicating how the employees do their jobs and develops a plan for improving the process of carrying out work responsibilities (Rue and Byars, 2005). It informs on employee performance, their training needs and develops plans for employee development (Livy, 2007). It is a key element in boosting employee motivation, thereby increasing employee performance (Selvarajan and Cloninger, 2011). Vasset, Marnburg and Furunes (2011) view performance appraisal as an important technique for enhancing employee performance in an establishment.

Ahmad & Bujang (20I3) contend that performance appraisal is a systematic description of an individual’s strength and weakness with respect to the job, for

According to Terry and Franklin (2003), performance appraisal is a periodic evaluation of an employee’s performance against the work’s stated requirements. Currently, performance appraisal system stresses on the present performance and future goals for performance. it also advocates for employee participation in setting the goals with their supervisors since people work harder to achieve objectives they have taken part in coming up with. Dechev (2010) avers that employees satisfy their needs by performing duties that provide them with supporting environment, performing meaningful tasks, participate in setting objectives, sharing rewards from their efforts and achieving continued personal growth.

All organizations need competent personnel to enhance their productivity. Yousef (2000) observes that in organizations, the wrong things are appraised while correct techniques are utilized. Performance appraisal has direct influence on job satisfaction and worker motivation (Ahmad & Ali, 2004). As such, it is important for the organizational leadership to provide proper motivation to the workers. Research has shown that performance appraisal gives rise to a connection between additional pay and the worker’s competency, thus inspiring

The system includes already established performance standards, designing a method of determining individual performance, comparison of individual performance against established standards and evaluation of performance based on the comparison with other similar activities. The establishment of performance standards delineates the employees’ responsibilities at work. Job standards are set against the worker performance. The worker performance (such as traits approach, behavioural approach, ranking methods, alternation ranking, results methods, productivity measures, 360 degrees evaluation and Management by Objectives) is then pegged. The employee’s performance is then compared against established standards. Finally, an evaluation of performance is made pegged on the comparison. However, some organizations are dissatisfied with their internal performance appraisal process (Selvarajan and Cloninger, 2008). For such organizations, it implies that performance appraisal process is not an appropriate mechanism for addressing employee motivation. But the method is still considered necessary for the purpose of creating a positive work environment and improvement of service quality. Other authors claim that performance appraisal process has a number of issues associated with it. these issues include poor design, lack of attention to the organizational culture, unwillingness to confront issues of