How do you prepare for the performance appraisal interview?

Planning the performance appraisal meeting

Preparation by the interviewer of the content of the interview will be needed, and the amount of preparation depends on the complexity of the content. Care is needed, however, to avoid adopting a plan so rigid that opportunities for participation by the employee are ignored. Remember the importance of the two-way nature of an appraisal.

One of the primary goals in preparing for a performance appraisal is to move yourself from an evaluation approach that was based on feelings, opinion and belief, to an appraisal that is based on fact and backed up by meaningful data.

Step 1: Assess job functions. The first step in this approach is to assess the employee's job functions, decide which functions are the most critical and define which specific activities and responsibilities contribute to these functions.

Step 2: Gather information. The next step in preparing the appraisal is gathering information. Review an employee's work plan and job description, and compare what should have been done with the actual results. Hopefully, notes, production reports, sales reports and other records are available to back up the appraisal. It's important to avoid the tendency to start observing an employee the week before the appraisal meeting.

1. Identify critical incidents. These are situations where an employee has made an outstanding contribution or has experienced a failure when attempting to fulfill a critical, very important or important job function. Be sure to include the entire span of time under review.

2. Review previous appraisals if they are available. This may be especially important if you are evaluating an employee who may be new in your department, and there are others in the organization who supervised the employee in the past. In the review, be sure to include:

   1. In addition to reading the previous evaluations, also talk with the prior supervisor to find out how that person reached the conclusions, and ask for examples of what the employee did or did not do.

   2. Be wary of character or personality discussions; these are not appraisals.

3. Seek a variety of input. The appraisal should be more accurate if you get opinions from others who know the work of your employees. By having more than one perspective, you will avoid errors in judgment. Informal feedback can come from a customer complaint or compliment, or when other managers or supervisors casually mention that your employee did a good job or had a problem. When this occurs, place a note in the employee's file so that you remember these incidents at the time of the appraisal.

Step 3: Analyze performance. There are two primary goals associated with performance appraisals: the first is to strengthen conduct that leads to good performance; the second is to change conduct that pulls performance down. This can only be accomplished if the employee understands the appraisal and trusts the accuracy and fairness of the process. To increase the employee's understanding and acceptance of the appraisal, consider the following strategies:

1. Giving the employee two weeks notice of the appraisal meeting allows him time to think about what he has accomplished, any problems he or she may have experienced and what the critical, very important and important job elements of the position are.

2. When you set up the meeting, ask the employee to come prepared to talk about accomplishments, problems, objectives for the next year and personal and professional growth.

3. Indicate what you expect to do at the meeting and how you expect to conduct it. Suggest to the employee that he reread the work plan, job description and review whatever reports are available. Some managers even share their entire file with the employee.

Step 4: Set up a development plan. Prepare a development plan by focusing on two categories of results, job conduct that is important, but negative, and job conduct that is important and positive. For positive results, explore with the employee how performance can be enhanced even more. For negative results, identify the factors leading to the employee's failure and explore ways of succeeding. Often a development plan, more training, courses, seminars, or simply a better understanding of the problem will enable an employee to do a better job.

Step 5: Plan the discussion. Once you have gathered the information, made an analysis of performance and set up a development plan, it is important to plan the appraisal discussion. In planning the discussion:

1. It is important to limit the objectives and topics of discussion. Because you are reviewing a year of an employee's work life and planning the next year it is critical that the discussion concentrate on only those elements of performance that are critical, very important and important.

2. Limit the number of areas in which you want the employee to improve and be ready to suggest techniques for improvement.

3. You may want to incorporate into the agenda time for the employee to present his self-assessment, time for both you and the employee to explore the causes of any problems, and time to set objectives and work out a development plan for the next review period.

Step 6: Hold the meeting. Finally, choose a time and a place for your meeting where you and your employee will have privacy and the ability to concentrate on the discussion. Consider the following suggestions:

1. It is a good idea to hold the meeting in a place where you and the employee can sit face-to-face without a desk between you to encourage the free flow of conversation.

2. Once you have set up the appointment for the appraisal meeting, keep it. If you later cancel or postpone it, you may be sending an inadvertant message that whatever you are going to do is more important than good performance.

<p>This tends to be an underrated aspect of the appraisal process. The following general guidelines indicate what matters should receive attention.</p>

How do you prepare for the performance appraisal interview?

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