I spotted a very interesting story about online review sites, which have apparently caused the UK’s Competitions and Market Authority (CMA) to open investigations into how some companies are using fake, paid-for reviews about their goods and services.  Just as I do, perhaps these reviews determine whether you buy a particular item, or select that service, but how do we know if they are genuine? Giving genuine reviews and honest feedback is always in everyone’s interest.

But it’s still no surprise that appraisals are often not top of the ‘favourite things’ for managers and employees.

They are sometimes described as ‘one of those special meetings where the manager gets no sleep the night before and the employee gets no sleep the night after.’

When it comes to appraisals in the workplace, studies show that roughly half the time performance appraisals make things better and half the time they make things worse – not a success rate that any organisation would want, given the amount of time they take up.

Here, we highlight 5 of the most common problems with appraisals:-

Poor preparation

‘Seat of the pants’ appraisals rarely produce effective results. It quickly becomes apparent that the appraiser is not well prepared. The employee may assume the manager does not know what is going on, or that they simply don’t care enough to prepare.

1.Superficial knowledge

How well do you really know your people and what they do? Unfortunately, many managers simply don’t know enough about their people or the quality of their work. A sure-fire recipe for disaster in an appraisal. Do your homework and gather the facts.

2.Halo/Horns

Allowing one highly favourable or unfavourable aspect or example of performance to colour the entire appraisal and ignore the employee’s other strengths and weaknesses.

The Halo error occurs when one aspect of the employee’s performance affects the manager’s evaluation of other performance areas. If they had a few absences, the manager might give them a high rating in other areas of their work. Similarly, an employee might be rated high on performance simply because she had a good dress sense and came to work punctually!

Horn effects: the manager’s bias is in the other direction, where one negative quality of the employee overshadows others. For example, the person does not smile normally so they cannot get along with people!

3.Recency or one-offs

A particularly recent or one significant event may skew the overall judgement of an employee. Take informal notes about employees (both the good and not so good) throughout the year to ensure your evaluation is based on the entire appraisal period and not just what happened last week!

4.No follow up

Most of the time and effort spent in planning and conducting an effective appraisal is lost if you don’t have follow-through with the agreed actions or plans discussed. Do not over promise and then under deliver. Schedule it – then make sure you do it.

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