Question: What are the main competencies and skills that should be included in a written employee appraisal form?

Answer:

Regular performance appraisals are vital for employees to build on their strengths, realize their areas of development and aim to achieve their full potential and make the maximum contribution to their company. What you as an appraiser are expected to do in order to proceed with an effective employee performance appraisal is to:

1. Check that the action plan agreed upon during the last appraisal was carried out.

2. In case of pending actions, find out why.

3. Make sure the employee is praised for carrying out suggested tasks successfully. Effective employee appraisal forms may differ in their design but their main components are mostly similar.

Make sure the below skills and competencies do feature in your employee appraisal form:

1. Evaluate “cultural” competencies: These apply to all employees and are organization related as they measure the employee’s success in abiding by the company’s values, mission and vision. Clear guidelines are expected to be already put in place and communicated early on during the induction period.

2. Evaluate “behavioral” competencies: These differ depending on the nature of the job. The most common criteria would be: communication and interpersonal skills, team and leadership skills, eagerness to constantly learn, analytical skills, technical skills and/or any other specific job related criteria (i.e.: client focus for sales and marketing professionals, proactivity and problem solving skills for customer care professionals, attention to detail for admininstrative staff, etc…)

3. Evaluate success in meeting set objectives: These are directly related to the employee’s SMART Objectives which ought to have been set during the last appraisal and updated in the job description accordingly. This is where the appraiser can touch on improvements made and improvements still required, and set new objectives with the employee’s consent and buy-in.