An employee performance appraisal process runs a few times during the year. If designed appropriately, significantly more information can be captured and analyzed by organizations. This may require some modifications to the appraisal instrument such that it can be used for employee feedback, self development and studying the rating patters of supervisors besides a host of other analytics.

What more can be done by organizations in utilizing this important process is a focus of this article.

What most organization currently do!
Employee performance appraisals are generally being used by most organizations to:

1.Evaluate employee contribution to the organization based on the goals assigned to them.
2.Determine employee ranking in terms of “Excellent performer', 'good performer', 'average performer' and so on.
3.Know the current ratings of an employee in competencies and skills related to their job positions & identify development plans.
4.Capture information about training needs.
5.Finalize incentives such as performance bonus and annual increments.
6.Manage promotions and transfers.
7.Identify succession plans.
What more can be done?
Utilize appraisal instrument as a survey tool

Since most organizations carry out employee appraisals on an annual basis, it is possible to gather employee perceptions on the organizational issues such as:

Quality of leadership at various levels.
Effectiveness of the training provided.
Awareness about company policies.
Awareness about business objectives and plans.
Factors causing concern and dissatisfaction to employees.

With some modifications to the exiting appraisal instrument, each of the above issues can be modeled in a manner that help in statistical analysis. For example, to gather inputs about the issue: 'Factors causing concern and dissatisfaction', employees could be asked to pick & choose any two factors from the table below which in their perception are major causes for dissatisfaction:
                     
Inadequate safety at workplace
Out dated plant & machinery
Performance goals not clearly defined
No guidance & counseling by the Manager
Compensation not linked with performance
Lack of cooperation between departments
Delayed resolution of grievances
Inadequate communications from the Management

In the manner discussed above, other organizational issues also can be analyzed through a 'Set of Factors'.

Management will probably like to get this feed back directly. Technology can help in the following manner:

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