Performance appraisals are a review and planning process. An employee and his or her manager meet at regular intervals to review all aspects of the employee’s job including their work performance (behaviour and performance results) and to plan activities and targets, discuss any workplace issues, and identify opportunities for on-going training and development. In concept they are an excellent idea, however a study conducted by the American Society for Human Resources discovered the majority of performance appraisals have a zero impact on performance. One reason for this is that appraisals are often laborious. When both RTO employees and managers dread them, they can’t ever be effective.
Turn performance appraisals from a negative to a positive experience—for you and your RTO employees. Here are six tips to assist you with your training and administration staff in your RTO.
– No surprises: Hold enough feedback sessions in the months leading up to the appraisal so that employees can predict precisely what they’ll hear from you. Managers get more comfortable with feedback, better at giving feedback, and they nip problems before they become big.
– Be clear: Ensure employees totally understand how their performance will be measured. It is terribly unfair to enforce an unpredictable bell curve rating system.
– Ask questions: Have honest conversations that explore what employees are expecting. With this information, you’re able to correct perceptions in advance.
– Engage in two-way conversations. Engage the employees in a two-way discussion whenever their performance is the topic. You can improve performance appraisals by involving the employee in the discussion all year long.
– Be prepared. Improve performance appraisals by using an employee self-appraisal prior to the performance appraisal.
– Trust. An effective performance appraisal trusts employees to do the right thing, if they know what the right thing is. Consequently, setting performance goals is critically important, but how you set the goals is the most important factor of all.
Performance appraisals have the potential to make a real difference. If they’re delivered in the right way, employees won’t need to come first to feel like a winner.