Engaging Employees in the Appraisal Process

All too often employees see an appraisal process solely as a gateway to discuss pay and conditions, but a well prepared and delivered process can deliver so much more to both the employer and employee.

The balance wheel provides a really useful tool to facilitate an open and honest discussion about strengths and weaknesses as well as aspirations and potential of individuals and can also capture outcomes quickly and easily for review of progress.

You choose the aspects to be considered based on what best reflects the vision and culture of your organisation and ask your employees to rate themselves on a scale of 1-10 prior to meeting. This provides a means to discuss where they have delivered better value to the company than they realised or where there have been shortcomings and the impact this has had on them, their peers, your customers and the company.

It is important during this process to ensure that discussions are based on real examples of actions, projects and outcomes. This provide the opportunity to find out barriers or challenges that you were not previously aware of.

The meeting should conclude with an agreed scoring for each aspect and an action plan to make improvements, provide training and development and to identify areas where additional responsibility would be welcomed and where merit is recognised.

Harry Kerr – TAB (Aberdeen-ShireEast)