Employee appraisal forms are commonplace and can provide a wide variety of benefits to employees and employers alike.
However, the process of filling them out is a lot of paperwork that you might feel isn’t necessary—but it really is.
If you’re unsure why you should fill out an employee appraisal form for each employee, read on to learn more.
We’ll cover what an appraisal form is, what each one should include, and why they’re important for both you and your employees.
What An Employee Appraisal Form is
An employee appraisal form is a form that evaluates an employee’s performance.
Your company has goals and expectations that you require each employee to meet, but trying to record whether or not each person you’ve hired is doing so day by day is difficult or even impossible to keep track of.
These forms allow you to evaluate each employee based on their individual work ethic and achievements throughout the year.
You, your managers, and your HR department can then directly compare the performance of your employees to see who may be deserving of a bonus, raise, or promotion and who may need to be let go.
Why They’re Important
These forms condense a year’s worth of work down into a few sentences and numbers or letters based on how well your employee performed, followed company policy, and whether or not they helped your company reach its goals.
They allow you to score an employee on what they did well and what their shortcomings were, which allows you to better understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Knowing where your employees are strong and where they’re weak allows you to assign them to tasks and roles you know they’ll succeed in and keep them out of positions they’re not suited for.
It also allows you to provide feedback and encourage good behavior. They can see where they succeeded and failed so they know what habits to uphold and which to change.
They can also see how close they might be to a raise or promotion they may be striving for, encouraging them to keep improving.
Without this feedback, however, your employees may be uncertain of how well or poorly they’re doing and how close they may be to earning rewards or possibly even being let go, which can cause a myriad of issues.
These forms may also be required based on the type of company you run and the laws in your state.
Even if they aren’t required, the information they can provide both you and your employees can be invaluable.
What You Should Include
Your employee appraisal form should be set up correctly so as to avoid confusion and provide information with value.
There are quite a few categories to consider when deciding what information should be on your forms, from how punctual they were to how well they performed in leadership positions.
We’ll discuss a few possible categories below to help you determine which ones you should include.
Quality of Work
In this section, you can evaluate the work completed by each employee and see how high-quality it was.
This allows you to see which employees are consistently meeting or exceeding your standards so you can reward them and which ones deserve a bit of feedback.
When delivering feedback about the quality of work, examine the work they have provided, explain where they fall short, and possibly even elaborate on a few ways they could improve.
Simply telling them to “do better” is vague and unhelpful and may cause them to become frustrated or upset, especially if they thought they were doing well.
Punctuality and Reliability
How often your employees came to work on time and how well they were able to help when needed is an important consideration.
Employees who clock in on time should be rewarded, but may need to be reprimanded if they fail to meet deadlines or are generally unhelpful when working in a team or when assisting their coworkers.
Employees who come in late often but work well in teams, meet deadlines, and are helpful to your other employees may need transportation assistance.
Providing the appropriate feedback makes your thoughts clear and allows for an open discussion of why they fail or where they may need help.
The Benefits Of Filling Out Employee Performance Appraisals
All in all, a performance appraisal form provides you, your management team, and your employees with valuable insight into how well they’re performing at their assigned tasks, showcases areas where they need to improve, and can allow them to explain why they failed or succeeded at things and ask for help where needed.
Even if appraisal forms aren’t necessary where you‘re based, filling them out can be an invaluable way to explain your expectations a bit more clearly and possibly even receive feedback yourself.
If your expectations were harsher than you expected, you’ll see that through the forms and can adjust accordingly.
Ultimately, the benefits you draw from employee appraisal forms will vary, but they will always be valuable.
Ella Marcotte
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