Used properly, performance appraisals can be a highly effective tool for monitoring and motivating team members and employees. The following tips provide a crash course in how to conduct effective appraisals, so that you can further enhance the contributions of your co-workers and become increasingly effective in your own role as manager:

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  	Careful documentation is the best way to review and record individual and team performance over the entire review period.

  Explain the reasons for conducting the performance appraisal to your appraisees. If they seem uncomfortable or uneasy, try to make them comfortable with the surroundings first. Explain the performance appraisal system fully, including the assessment parameters, review period, ratings, and the results expected.
  
  
• If appraisees are new to the company or are not familiar with the appraisal process, make the employee aware of the existence of the appraisal system as a tool to increase effectiveness, performance, and outcome.
  
  
• Explain the objectives of the appraisal process, and the expected outcomes to the concerned appraisees. Mutually discuss how you will measure performance and explain how you will use ratings to quantify those measures.
  
  
• Inform your team that a performance appraisal is not a weapon to suppress performance, but a tool to improve team synergy along with individual capability and skill. Clarify that team performance is the top priority.
  
  
• Careful documentation is the best way to review and record individual and team performance over the entire review period. At the same time, keep the entire team and individual appraisees informed about team and individual accomplishments and achievements. Periodically encourage individual and team performance by praising, commending, and recognizing results-oriented performance.
  
  
• During the review period, identify areas where appraisees require improvement. Simultaneously, identify any potential for greater roles for individual appraisees.
  
  
• Rather than writing an indifferent performance report, use facts, reports, and figures to illustrate and present an inclusive and in-depth performance analysis for the appraisee. It is advisable to use standardized, objective language to document the performance appraisal in order to avoid unintended legal consequences.
  
  
• Concentrate on improving the performance of the individual rather than improving his or her personality. Foe example, it is better to say that the appraisee needs to improve in conversational skills rather than write that the appraisee is too quiet.
  
  
• Rather than focusing on negative observations in the performance appraisal, use positive and encouraging words while mentioning any deficits in performance. Also bear in mind that offbeat and unusual comments may come back to haunt you later.
  
  
• Be concise, brief, and succinct in wording your performance appraisal. Rather than giving appraisees a broad range of areas to improve upon, provide a few key areas that the appraisees can work on.
  
  
• Performance appraisals are not a forum to introduce new policies to the team, but a tool for improving performance on existing projects. They are also not a tool for dealing with violations in behavior or conduct. Do not use the appraisals to punish errant employees. Doing so will undermine the effectiveness of the tool and your reputation as a manager.
  

In sum, it is critical that you, as a manager, have a firm grasp on the intended purposes of the performance appraisal. Understand what to use it for, and what not to use it for, and you will be well on your way to making it an effective part of your managerial tool belt.

On the net:

Writing Center-10 Tips for Effective Performance Appraisals
www.uliveandlearn.com/lessons/lesson.cfm?lesid=267&pg=1

Performance Appraisal
www.performance-appraisal.com/intro.htm

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