Are you one of those companies who still use a performance appraisal system which just measures some default characteristics of an individual?

Let me guess……it usually happens once annually and these forms will not be touched again for another whole year.

This can be an epic waste of time for many companies since this exercise contributes almost no value to it, which is after all the purpose of all processes in all companies.

So below is a short list of all things that can go wrong with performance appraisal and how you can avoid them.

Problem: The employee does not know what is expected from her. Often goals and expectations are not made clear to the employee and therefore she cannot judge for herself whether she is falling short of her duties.

Solution: Companies should make employees part of the goal setting process, discuss with them what goals they are comfortable with.

Problem : All employee roles are not the same. Stop judging them the same way. Traditional performance appraisal requires an individual to provide feedback on default categories like communication, leadership, teamwork etc which is highly standardized and may not fit the role expectations of the individual.

Solution: Start judging different roles on different parameters. A content writer cannot be judged on how many words she writes when her job is to write engaging content and someone in customer service cannot be judged on how many calls she had taken when her job is to solve

Problem: It’s not always their fault. An individual’s performance is always influenced by his environment and her input cannot always be directly correlated to her output.

Solution: Have an open discussion with your employee about her problems and give her an opportunity to explain herself if her performance was below par. These talks can be extremely insightful.

Problem: Get rid of bias in your review. Objective feedback has always been subject to bias even if someone does it unintentionally.

Solution: Putting a 360 degree appraisal system in place or at least getting someone reviewed by multiple sources can even out these biases and give you a more subjective overview.