Performance Appraisal Essay -- Business, Employee Evaluation, Performa

Performance appraisals are a major component of human resource management systems used by organisations to measure and manage what is considered to be the most valuable resource available to them; human capital. This report aims to evaluate the effectiveness of performance appraisals and its application to both the employer and its employees, taking into consideration various rationales for its implementation. This will be achieved through an in depth review of the concept of performance appraisals, its evolution in corporate organisations and existing literature on the topic, and the effects (both positive and negative) to the organisation as a whole and to its employees. It will be argued that despite being of relative importance to performance management systems in organisations, performance appraisals fail to achieve the lofty ideals and objectives which characterize its implementation. Performance appraisals are a key component of the performance management process in organisations and are used to obtain feedback on performance levels of employees for a given period of time. Performance appraisals have been defined as the process which allows firms to measure and consequently evaluate an employee's achievements and behaviour over a certain period of time (Devries et al, 1981). It is the process of identifying, observing, measuring and developing human resources in organisations (Cardy and Dobbins, 1994). Various organisations use varying performance appraisal systems and have differing opinions on performance goals which cause some sort of confusion on the purpose of performance appraisal systems (Buckley and Wiese, 1998). Performance is thus the critical factor which is being addressed in the understanding and developmen... ...ughout the organisation. This way, management is able to consistently harmonize its operational goals with employee developmental efforts and job expectations. Performance appraisals also give organisations the opportunity to address performance issues without conflict by providing evidence of actual on the job performance and productivity. This way, high achievers and bottom performance are easily singled out with relative recommendations effected. Despite performance appraisals satisfying numerous organisational objectives, the focus of its activities is in providing direction and information to employees to boost performance and job productivity (Latham et al., 1993). This should remain the primary objective performance appraisal systems should seek to address which leads to this article addressing issues which affects the effectiveness of its implementation.