Table of Content
Introduction
Performance appraisal is important for HRs to conduct an assessment of employee performance and roll out objective feedback. This feedback is necessary for the business to sustain and keep on refining the quality of hire. One of the core impacts of the performance feedback is on an employee’s appraisal. So, the staff members look forward to the reviews, remarks, and ratings they receive from their seniors, peers, and subordinates for a holistic view of their performance and potential considered by the organisation as a unit. Similarly, there are problems that occur in this process. That is why HR managers need to find ways to overcome problems of performance appraisal to bring in more transparency and ensure to build a legacy of the most loyal and high-performing talent.
So read the post ahead and find ways to overcome these challenges with a streamlined process.
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Top 8 Performance Appraisal Issues
- Bias in the appraisal process
Possibility of bias occurs in the appraisal process in terms of race, gender, experience, religion, region, etc. This results in negative and unfair performance evaluation practices in the organisation.
- Limited knowledge and perspective
Giving appraisal to an employee based on a manager’s rating and review is not enough. An employee must be evaluated on more fronts as they are constantly dealing with multiple stakeholders in the firm at a time.
A single perspective of the manager can be misconstrued and misunderstood. Project partner, team leader, and business head reviews are also important. In fact, modern organisations let employees rate themselves as well.
However, depending on a single person’s perspective to rate and review performances will hamper the team’s growth.
- Inaccurate assessment of tasks and achievements
Certain tasks and achievements are not quantifiable. For example, the way one talks, persuades someone, leads a team, gets more results, or closes a deal are not quantifiable terms. So, when qualitative tasks are getting measured on wrong measures it leads to inaccurate assessments and hampers a deserving person’s growth in the company.
- Focusing only on the negatives
One of the problems of performance appraisal is that often, managers or leaders focus on what the employee did not achieve. However, this leaves out the scope for improvement and leaves no room for the organisation to celebrate the wins the same person achieved in a quarter or appraisal period.
This results in anxiety, undue stress, and demotivating emotions in the culture. That again leads to an increase in turnover and lower job satisfaction, and then people start to indulge in quiet quitting.
- Setting up vague standards
Another issue in the appraisal process and system is to set up vague standards. Team leaders do this when they do not give clear instructions to the employees as to:
- What to achieve?
- By when to achieve?
- How much to achieve?
- Why to achieve? Is it what the employee signed up to do originally when onboarded?
- What is at stake?
- What are the consequences?
- What are the rewards?
- What tools must the employee use?
- What medium must be followed by the employees to achieve their goals and KPIs?
A team leader has to be aware of these questions to be more authentic and answerable to their team members when assigning them new KPIs and KRAs. Otherwise, vague goals and standards only end up wasting everyone’s time, resources, efforts, knowledge, and expertise.
- Expecting too much from the person
That means you are asking the person to achieve 10x or 5x growth when you know that is practically not possible. That might be because of a lack of resources, knowledge, and experience.
However, putting this undue and unexpected pressure on the employees leads to a decrease in self-belief and self-confidence. They are unsure if they are the right people to do the job anymore if they fail to achieve unrealistic expectations of the team leader.
- Having bias towards employees having similar traits
Another limitation to objective performance appraisal is when a manager gives more points and scores to a person who has similar traits. But that is not always the right thing to do.
The goals have to be objective and fair to everyone on the team. Otherwise, this leads to nepotism, favouritism, and unhealthy competition in the team, when team members try to win the leader’s attention.
This can break the trust of all dedicated team members in each other in the long run.
- Having no comprehensive evaluation in place
Another challenge we face when completing a performance appraisal cycle is the lack of a comprehensive evaluation system.
When the data of an employee’s performance, power, influence, and potential is incomplete, the result of their evaluation will also not be justifiable.
It can be misconstrued and misjudged. Someone might get underpaid or overpaid because of incomplete and incomprehensible evaluations.
8 Ways to Overcome Problems of Performance Appraisal
- Train your evaluators not to be bias
Use the training modules and classes often to train the mindset of your new and seasoned leaders. Tell them what is the need of the hour with respect to the talent you want to have in the organisation.
Ensure your leaders have no doubt about ways to remove any kind of bias from the process of profiling and evaluating the performance and potential of an employee.
Communicate the consequences of finding bias in the performance evaluation process to all leaders. Give them an eLMS module where they can refurnish and replenish their managerial and leadership skills.
- Mobile-first approach for timely appraisals
You need to implement a mobile-first performance management and appraisal system. This removes unwanted delays from the process. Anyone and everyone can rate themselves and their team members on the mobile at the touch of a single icon or button.
The system will give them automatic reminders as well.
- Comprehensive strategies to give 360-view of someone’s performance
Install a comprehensive approach to the performance management and appraisal system. Take reviews from peers, seniors, super seniors, project managers and partners, clients, etc. This will ensure that each review and rating is normalised and averaged out.
Business heads can find all these ratings given to an employee for each period on the PMS module we provide. They are free to browse, accept, or reject those ratings.
Business heads give their ratings and reviews as well to normalise the graph of the total appraisal they want to roll out for a season.
So, this process ends up removing the learned, algorithmic, or personal bias from the process.
- Leverage the 9-box grid method in the personalised dashboard
Identify the stars of your business easily when you have a 9-box grid visuals presented on the dashboard. Check who is outperforming and who is still not reaching their full potential.
Check which person has the ability to take on more projects and which person needs more mentoring. Also, make faster decisions on which person you want to put in the PIP and terminate with immediate effect.
This helps your organisation to make stringent, strict, and much-needed decisions when it comes to appraising deserving people and putting them in the right positions for the coming years and months.
- Set clear objectives and KRA template with AI Suggest
Another smart strategy to overcome problems of performance appraisal is to leverage AI Suggest by uKnowva. It automatically creates a complete KRA template for each job profile and role as per the latest industry trends and standards within seconds.
It gives you the exact KRA and core competencies you can use to templatise the KRA for evaluating and appraising the team member. You don’t need to search Google for hours anymore.
The tool is freely embedded in the HRMS we provide. It cuts down your research work by half for every new and existing employee you want to evaluate objectively.
You can also save the template as a draft and make the changes later to finally roll it out to the concerned person.
- Discuss the KRAs and KPIs with your staff once for their opinions
Talk to your team members to get clarity on the KRA and KPIs to set for them. Discuss and negotiate the goals and targets for each period. Communicate the same on the intranet if need be, and make sure that your team members acknowledge that individually.
Set benchmarks for the type of performances and targets that you expect from someone with their experience and calibre. This helps to bridge the gap between both parties and ensure that the process is smoother to come on the same page for achieving common organisational goals.
- Flexible PMS for streamlining the process
Every organisation has one way or another to evaluate performances and give appraisals. Some organisations are using the future-forward approach, while others are still stuck on the traditional one with a limited perspective.
Whatever may be the case, transparency and objectivity matter the most. For that, you need a highly flexible, customisable, and configurable PMS. uKnowva HRMS provides you with that without hidden charges to streamline the process and reduce the paperwork.
- Ensure that the PMS interconnects with other HR modules for complete evaluation
A performance management and evaluation system needs data from attendance, leaves, achievements unlocked, projects and tasks completed, etc. This data collection creates havoc when the organisation either maintains a lot of paperwork or uses multiple software.
Remove this hassle when you do uKnowva. It allows your PMS module to interconnect and integrate the data with other HR modules like leaves, attendance, sales, projects, tasks, timesheets, etc.
So, the reporting manager has complete visibility of the performance and potential of the employee. This eliminates any scope of bias or favouritism.
Conclusion
The blog talks about the top 8 challenges in the performance appraisal system and then narrates 8 right ways to go about it. That way, you learn how to overcome problems of performance appraisal smartly, objectively, with transparency, and with complete authority.
So, invest in a mobile-first, future-forward, flexible, AI-operated, and change-ready PMS system like ours. You will be able to implement all those solutions swiftly without putting pressure on the team, yourself, or the sensitive environment when you digitally transform the entire appraisal and evaluation process in a few clicks.
FAQs on Performance Appraisal Issues
- What should be done if an employee disagrees with their appraisal?
Employees should discuss concerns with their manager, provide evidence supporting their perspective, and work collaboratively to find a resolution.
- Are there specific performance metrics commonly used in appraisals?
Common metrics include key performance indicators (KPIs), project completion rates, sales targets, customer satisfaction scores, and other relevant benchmarks.
- How does performance appraisal impact career development and promotions?
Positive appraisals can contribute to career advancement by showcasing achievements, while areas for improvement provide opportunities for skill development.
- How can managers provide constructive feedback during appraisals?
Managers should focus on specific examples, be objective, offer praise for achievements, and provide actionable suggestions for improvement.
