Criterion Used for Performance Appraisal of International Employees

Improvement Potential

When organizations evaluate their employees’ performance, many of the criteria used focus on the past. From a performance management viewpoint, the problem is that you cannot change the past. Unless a firm takes further steps, the evaluation data become merely historical documents. Therefore, firms should emphasize the future, including the behaviors and outcomes needed to develop the employee, and, in the process, achieve the firm’s goals. This involves an assessment of the employee’s potential. Including potential in the evaluation process helps to ensure more effective career planning and development. You should remember that the evaluation criteria presented here are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many appraisal systems are hybrids of these approaches.

Competencies

Competencies include a broad range of knowledge, skills, traits, and behaviors that may be technical in nature, relate to interpersonal skills, or are business-oriented. Some managers recommend that cultural competencies such as ethics and integrity be used for all jobs. There are also competencies that are job-specific. For example, analytical thinking and achievement orientation might be essential in professional jobs. In leadership jobs, relevant competencies might include developing talent, delegating authority, and people management skills. The competencies selected for evaluation purposes should be those that are closely associated with job success.

Research conducted by the University of Michigan Business School and sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Global Consulting Alliance determined that success in HR is dependent on competency and specific skills in the following five key areas:

• Strategic contribution: Connecting firms to their markets and quickly aligning employee behaviors with organizational needs.
• Business knowledge: Knowing how businesses are run and translating this into action.
• Personal credibility: Demonstrating measurable value; being part of an executive team.
• HR delivery: Providing efficient and effective service to customers in the areas of staffing, performance management, development, and evaluation.
• HR technology: Using technology and Web-based means to deliver value to customers.

Traits

Certain employee traits such as attitude, appearance, and initiative are the basis for some evaluations. However, many of these commonly used qualities are subjective and may be either unrelated to job performance or difficult to define. In such cases, inaccurate evaluations may occur and create legal problems for the organization as well. This was the case in Wade v Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service where the circuit court ruled: In a performance appraisal system, general characteristics such as leadership, public acceptance, attitude toward people, appearance and grooming, personal conduct, outlook on life, ethical habits, resourcefulness, capacity for growth, mental alertness, and loyalty to organization are susceptible to partiality and to the personal taste, whim, or fancy of the evaluator as well as patently subjective in form and obviously susceptible to completely subjective treatment by those conducting the appraisals.

At the same time, certain traits may relate to job performance and, if this connection is established, using them may be appropriate. Traits such as adaptability, judgment, appearance, and attitude may be used when shown to be job-related.

Goal Achievement

If organizations consider ends more important than means, goal achievement outcomes become an appropriate factor to evaluate. The outcomes established should be within the control of the individual or team and should be those results that lead to the firm’s success. At upper levels, the goals might deal with financial aspects of the firm such as profit or cash flow, and market considerations such as market share or position in the market. At lower organizational levels, the outcomes might be meeting the customer’s quality requirements and delivering according to the promised schedule.

Behaviors

When an individual’s task outcome is difficult to determine, organizations may evaluate the person’s task-related behavior or competencies. For example, an appropriate behavior to evaluate for a manager might be leadership style. For individuals working in teams, developing others, teamwork and cooperation, or customer service orientation might be appropriate. Desired behaviors may be appropriate as evaluation criteria because if they are recognized and rewarded, employees tend to repeat them. If certain behaviors result in desired outcomes, there is merit in using them in the evaluation process.

Qualities:

Quality of Work

One of the most important criteria for judging an employee’s performance is the overall quality of work, according to Workforce. What is the employee’s performance like on a day-to-day basis? Quality of work is an umbrella category that may encompass aspects such as teamwork, communication skills and productivity. It may also include details on the employee’s targets. You can evaluate this category as a whole and provide specific measurements for the criteria this category contains.

When evaluating the quality of work, think of both the big picture and small details. Provide examples in your evaluation, such as how much of the company target the employee has achieved. Also, include specific details regarding a project where the employee did well or a meeting that needed improvement.

Goals and Target Achievement

Your criteria for judging employee performance should include quantitative elements such as their goals and target achievement. While much of a performance appraisal is qualitative and subjective, the goals and achievement element is objective and measurable in clear numbers. For example, if your sales rep has a target to close 25 new accounts each quarter and only closes seven, you can see that there is a problem with achieving the target.

Include the hard numbers in the performance evaluation, but also consider the context surrounding those numbers. Are there any external or uncontrollable factors that have affected how much of the target your employee has achieved? For example, a change in customer needs could be why the employee was able to close only seven new accounts, instead of the expected 25.

Level of Productivity

The level of productivity employee evaluation criteria is important because it looks at employee output over a specific period, according to Workable. For your business to be successful, you need an efficient and productive team that’s fast and agile. If some of your team members take twice as long as others to complete simple tasks, you may end up missing out on important sales opportunities.

Consider what your industry average for specific tasks or duties is for the job description you’re evaluating and see how your employees compare. Keep the quality of work in mind when reviewing productivity, because it doesn’t matter how fast someone works if the work needs to be redone due to poor performance.

Initiative and Motivation

Business professionals at Optimus Performance identify initiative as one of the top five employee evaluation performance criteria. Effective employees need to motivate themselves to take action without needing to be told by their manager or colleagues. If employees need external motivation to complete their tasks, managers may micromanage or spend too much time helping their employees complete their work. Employees with initiative can see what needs to be done and complete tasks without waiting for the manager to nudge them.

Provide your employees with an example of a time where they took the initiative to complete their tasks. If they went above and beyond their job description, this is another example of taking initiative. If the employee lacks initiative and isn’t motivated to complete tasks, explain how this affects the performance of the business as a whole.

Teamwork and Leadership Skills

Whether or not an employee has a leadership position, leadership skills are important. In line with leadership, employees also need to be able to work effectively with their colleagues. In your performance appraisal, cover how well the employee showcases leadership during projects or meetings. Are they good at taking charge and keeping their team on track? Do they encourage other team members to succeed by inspiring them?

In addition, mention whether the employee helps out coworkers by offering guidance or answering questions. The Evaluation Forms website advises that a good leader is approachable by everyone to discuss problems and issues. It’s also important to install confidence in team members by providing positive feedback and encouragement to others where possible.

Ability to Problem Solve

Regardless of the kind of job your employee has, being able to solve problems effectively is essential. Employees need to know what to do in a difficult situation without asking a manager or senior employee. Ensure that employees have the training and resources they need to solve problems in their roles. In your employee evaluations, discuss how well they react to stressful situations.

Does the employee know what to do if there is a defective product? Do they know how to resolve a customer dispute? If not, provide steps that your employee can take in the appraisal to show what effective problem-solving looks like. Keep in mind that employees need to have confidence in themselves and their skills before they are ready to resolve difficult situations on their own.

Written and Verbal Communication Skills

Performance evaluation criteria should include the employee’s ability to communicate with managers, coworkers, customers, partners and other stakeholders. Is the employee able to be honest with team members without being aggressive? Do they know how to provide feedback while being cordial?

Listening is also an important part of effective communication. How well does the employee listen to leadership’s directions and follow through with them? When having a conversation with a colleague, do they pay attention to the details or are they just waiting to say what they want to share? Listening well helps employees to learn about other roles in the company and how their tasks fit together as a whole.

Customer and Colleague Feedback

Performance review criteria should also include feedback from others in the organization. If the employee has a management role, ask their subordinates how effective the employee is as a leader. If the employee has a customer-facing position, you may want to reach out to high-value customers for their opinions. As a business owner, you may not have the full picture of an employee’s performance without considering how others see them.

Performance Self-Appraisal

Provide your employees with the opportunity to evaluate their own performance and include these details in your performance appraisals. They may provide a unique insight into the quality of their work and their ability to reach targets. This is also a good way to understand what employees view as their weaknesses and strengths.

Some organizations provide employees with a full employee evaluation that they fill out before meeting with their manager. The manager evaluates the employees based on the same criteria, and they discuss the differences. For example, if employees believe they hit all their targets, but the manager says that they didn’t, it’s best to figure out the discrepancy right away. Similarly, an employee may feel their leadership skills are lacking, while a manager may believe them to be quite strong. Knowing this builds confidence in the employee.

Advantages

• It helps the supervisors to chalk out the promotion for performing employee and dismiss the inefficient workers.
• It helps the organization to decide the compensation of the employee. Also, based on the performance and the additional efforts put by the employee the extra benefits and allowances can be decided using records of performance appraisal.
• Special actions can be taken for the development of the employees. The performance appraisal system will highlight the weakness of the employee based on which the training program arrangement can be carried out by the organization.
• The performance appraisal further suggests the changes in the selection process which will help to hire better employees.
• Performance review is a effective way to communicate the status of the performance of the employee. It is a way to provide feedback about how the employees are doing on their job.
• The evaluation of the performance can act as a motivational tool. It provides a picture about efficiency of the employee and motivates the individual to improve the performance.

Disadvantages

• Performance appraisal is totally depends on the factors used for the evaluation of the performance. The use of incorrect or irrelevant factors can lead to failure of performance appraisal.
• Sometimes the vital factors responsible for the performance are ignored during performance appraisal.
• The factors like attitude, abilities and initiative are very vague and difficult to gauge.
• Sometimes the managers who carry out the performance appraisal are not qualified enough to properly assess the abilities of the employees. Thus, it leads to irrelevant data collection and failure of performance appraisal.