Top Tips for Conducting Staff Appraisals

Staff appraisals are key not in just improving performance and efficient, but also staff engagement and motivation. An effective appraisal has benefits for both the employee and the employer – helping employers realise the potential of employees and allowing employees to greater understand the company and its expectations. Here are our Top 5 behavioural tips for Conducting Staff Appraisals
1. Establish Trust

For an employee to be able to give back to a company, they must first have trust in you, their line manager. That means listening and reinforcing that you’re there to support their best interests, development, achievements and progression.

2. Involve the Employee

Remember, this is a joint meeting where the employee has outcomes they expect to achieve. Listen actively to what they have to say and ensure you’ve planned enough time for joint discussion and analysis of their performance. The employee should do most of the talking in an appraisal.

3. Celebrate Achievement

Reinforcing good performance with praise and recognition is the easiest way to show that you value and appreciate your employee’s efforts. When it comes to underachievement, approach in a positive manner by focussing on understanding what went wrong and what can be done to prevent reoccurrence, rather than judging punitively.

4. Maintain Integrity

Appraisals should lead to specific actions, so make sure not to make promises you can’t keep. Failure to deliver on your end can result in a loss of trust and respect. It’s perfectly acceptable to say that you’ll confirm certain points at a later date – if needs be, schedule in a follow up meeting to discuss in more detail.

5. Consider Career-planning needs.

Developing and promoting current staff can bring great benefits to your company – but remember to align this with the aspirations and development needs of the individual. Finding out where they’d like to progress to, align it with your expectations and set goals and KPI’s accordingly.

All Citation clients have access to the HR and Employment Law advice line, which can provide strategic support with the planning, implementation and analysis of effective staff appraisals. For more information on this, and the other benefits of the Citation service, get in touch today.