Performance appraisals are a tool used by companies to boost employee morale and improve productivity by rewarding special employees. An employee may be rewarded for various reasons including; increasing company sales, working extra hours, generating more leads, creating a new product, etc. 

Companies usually have a limited pool of funds allocated to raises, bonuses, or rewards yearly. Therefore, the need to conduct performance appraisals, to select the few most exceptional out of many noteworthy achievements by employees.

Apart from serving as a tool for compensating the best employees, it also helps the company discover employees that need to be trained. In some instances, an employee may be discovered to be a better fit in another department or a new job role.

What is a Performance Appraisal? 

Performance appraisal, also referred to as performance review can be defined as a regular review of an employee’s job performance. It is a method used by many employers to evaluate employee’s performance to determine whether they deserve a promotion or not. 

Many companies use this method on a quarterly, bi-annually, or annual basis. Although the rewards may be given during this period, this is not the only time heads of department, HR managers and employers discuss employee performance.

Heads of department and HR managers are usually the ones to appraise an employee and suggest them for a promotion. However, this decision may also be influenced by coworkers or project teammates.

Types of Performance Appraisal 

Sales Performance Appraisal

Sales performance appraisal is used to evaluate a salesperson based on his/her skills and achievements of sales goals set previously. Salespeople are usually given yearly and monthly sales goals to meet for the company.

In some establishments, salespersons only get paid their full salary for the month when they meet their monthly sales goals. They only get paid an allowance which covers the cost of running around to pitch the company’s products and/or services to potential clients.

Uses of Sales Performance Appraisal

• Payment: In most cases, salespeople get a percentage cut from any sales closed by them. The sales performance appraisal is used to compile all the sales closed by a salesperson and used to pay them their cut monthly, annually, or any time frame predefined in the employment contract.
• Increase in allowance: Salespersons are sometimes only entitled to a monthly allowance for logistics, which includes commuting to one place or the other to pitch to clients. With a sales performance appraisal, the number of sales made by a salesperson can be recorded and used to determine whether he/she deserves an increase in allowance. Also, determining the amount of increase it should be.

Employee Performance Appraisal

Employee performance appraisal is used to evaluate the performance of an employee. Managers are usually saddled with the responsibility of evaluating employee’s performance on an annual basis.

Companies are expected to prepare a standard employee appraisal process or template, which will be followed by all the Managers. This makes it easier to assess employees’ performances, as they will be measured on a standard scale.

Advantages of Performance Appraisal

• Disbursement of Reward: With an employee performance appraisal, companies can easily reward employees for their hard work. That way, an employee will not take credit for another’s hard work. 
• Increased Employee Morale: Many employees look forward to the annual performance appraisal conducted by the company and therefore prepare for it. Knowing that they will get rewarded through a raise, promotion or bonus at the end of the year, they are encouraged to work hard to be the recipient.
• Increased Productivity: Increased employee morale equals increased productivity. When employees are looking forward to appraisal, they do whatever it takes to get the work done.

Project Performance Appraisal

Project performance appraisal involves evaluating the team members involved at the end of every project and not at the end of every year. Each team member is evaluated according to their contribution to the team, and also evaluated as a group together with other team members.

For example, a company may put together a team that consists of a UI/UX designer, front-end developer, backend developer, content creator, and a product developer as the lead. Let us assume that this team was put together to develop web applications for the company.

At the end of each project (i.e. web application), their performance will be evaluated. This exercise helps the team and its members develop with each passing project

Uses of Project Appraisal

• Employee improvement: Evaluating employee performance on a project makes it easy for managers to view their contribution, identify mistakes and give advice. Hence, helping employees improve.
• Encourages Teamwork: Teamwork is part of the things that are evaluated during a project performance appraisal. Employees are rewarded for how well they can work as a team, therefore, encouraging teamwork.

Peer Evaluation

Peer evaluation, sometimes called peer appraisal refers to the type of performance appraisal usually provided by coworkers who have observed the employee’s job performance and can give constructive feedback. This may be done by coworkers who have worked together with the employee before on a team, and are not direct or indirect candidates for the same position.

These conditions are to be met to prevent wrong or bias judgment. Also, the peer evaluation cannot be done by a superior to the employee.

Uses of Peer Evaluation

• Better Insights: Peer evaluation provides better insight into and knowledge of the employee’s work, as coworkers are often in the best position to appraise a colleague’s performance. This is because they are the ones who mostly work together with the employee.
• Good employee relationship: Employees will be encouraged to treat their coworkers better when they know coworkers are involved in their performance appraisal process.

Academic Performance Appraisal

Academic performance appraisal is conducted by academic institutions to evaluate the performance of their academic staff. It is usually conducted every year, and essential for career development, mentoring, accountability, and equity across the institution.

The purpose of an academic performance appraisal is to reward deserving staff with promotions and assist their development to contribute to the quality of knowledge they are imparting in students. It is usually a continuous process where each staff member will be attached to a supervisor who reviews the staff’s performance regularly.

Uses of Academic Performance Appraisal

• Staff Improvement: It improves the quality of teachers and the knowledge imparted in students.
• Staff Promotion: Performance review helps with the promotion of deserving staff members. For example, an associate professor will be made a professor if he/she is validated to have written a particular number of journals among other things.

Top 15 Online Performance Appraisal Form Templates for Businesses and Employees

Interview Evaluation Form Template

The interview evaluation form template assists employers and recruitment agencies in grading and managing prospective employee data. With this template from Formplus, you can easily evaluate your interviewee’s performance during and after an interview. 

There are a predefined set of form fields that gives a uniform grading system, which is useful especially during a panel interview. You can also modify this interview evaluation form to better suit your company.

Manuscript Submission Form Template

Are you a publisher, editor or book reviewer? Use this online manuscript submission form template by Formplus which allows authors to upload and send their manuscript to you for review. 

This form makes it easy for you to review the performance of an author’s book and it eases collaboration between publishers, authors, and editors.

Peer Evaluation Form Template

Make it easy for coworkers and teammates to get involved in the performance evaluation process with the peer evaluation form. This peer assessment form has input fields that assist employee’s pairs in grading him/her against some predefined scale. It is ideal for companies and student groups 

Product Evaluation Form Template

After launching a new product in the market, product marketers need to get feedback from consumers about the product. This is done to confirm whether the product is fulfilling customer needs and to gain insights on possible improvement.

Use this product evaluation form template from Formplus to receive feedback from customers regarding your product.

Teacher Evaluation Survey Template

The best way to ensure that teachers’ performance is topnotch and students have a progressive learning experience is to receive feedback from students. Allow students to evaluate their teacher’s performance with a teacher evaluation survey from Formplus.

You can also tweak this Teacher evaluation survey template to better assess students’ thoughts on their teacher’s explanations, lesson notes, ease of interaction, etc.

Training Evaluation Form Template

The training evaluation form template is suitable for companies or training firm that wants to receive feedback after an employee, students, teachers or general training session. This simple evaluation form simplifies your data collection process. Try one of the free evaluation form templates from Formplus today.

Annual Employee Review Form Template

Give rewards, bonuses, promotions, raises, and more to deserving employees with an annual employee performance review template. This online performance review template form saves you from the overwhelming process of evaluating employee performance over the year. Easily get feedback from managers on employee job performance with Formplus.

Course Evaluation Form Template

Asides from teacher evaluation, course evaluation is another way of improving the student learning experience. This Course evaluation form template helps you measure your student’s degree of understanding and their view on course content and delivery. 

The feedback you will receive during this process will help you discover better ways to communicate with your students.

Employment Exit Survey Template

Evaluate your company culture and level of human resources with an employee exit survey. Employees are the ones that can evaluate a company’s performance in terms of its treatment of employees.

This simple online form makes it easy for companies to get sincere feedback that will help improve company culture.

Daily Report Template

One of the best ways to increase productivity and accountability in the workplace is through a daily employee report. The daily employee report is an example of self-evaluation.

With this template, employees can give personal feedback on their work and productivity levels. Get a ready template or easily customize yours on Formplus.

Employee Referral Form

Get a detailed evaluation of the performance of prospective employees from their referees. This form can be given to your professional network when recruiting for internal positions or to job applicants who have reached the final stage of the job application process.

The referee can be a previous employer who has the required information about employee performance in the workplace.

Employee Suggestion Form

One of the best methods of getting feedback from employees regarding company culture is through an employee suggestion form. Get objective feedback on company performance with Formplus’ employee suggestion form template which keeps employees anonymous.

Sales Report Form Template

Easily conduct sales performance appraisals on salespeople with the sales report form template. This form seamlessly helps you manage your business’ daily, monthly, or yearly sales online—while keeping a record of the number of sales made by each salesperson. 

Create a report form that gives sales managers the perfect sales report model.

Can’t find your preferred performance appraisal form template? Sign up on Formplus to create customised forms online with our easy-to-use form builder.

Performance Appraisal Questionnaire Examples

• Annual Employee Review Form

This questionnaire contains a series of questions asked to get more information about the employee’s performance in the workplace. The first set of questions is for identifying the employee. So, we have questions like Employee Name, Department, Supervisor’s Name, Employee Start and Review Date, etc.

The second part of the questionnaire focuses on evaluating the employee’s skills, contributions, weaknesses, and need for improvement. 

• Course Evaluation Form

This questionnaire is used to collect feedback from students regarding their courses, the instructor, and their capability. It assists academic institutions in creating a better learning experience for students.

Unlike in the previous example, we see that the course evaluation form does not ask for the student’s name. Anonymity is maintained when preparing the course evaluation form to encourage objectivity.

The second part asks students to rate their understanding of the course, the course contents, and the instructor. There is a predefined rating scale for each question to ensure proper evaluation.

• Product Pricing Survey

Manufacturers who want to review that product prices or launch an upgrade of an existing product are the ones that mostly use a product pricing survey. They use it to gather information on what customers think about the prices of their products.

The first few questions in a product pricing survey are asked to identify whether the respondents are their customers or not. What follows are further questions investigating how often these customers use their product—a method of identifying loyal customers.

The second part of this survey is where the feedback is collected. Manufacturers ask the customers what they feel about the current pricing—whether it is too expensive, okay or cheap.

They also take suggestions on how much the product should be sold, while simultaneously doing a mild competitive analysis of the pricing compared to other brands.

Advantages of Performance Appraisal 

• Motivation: Appraisals motivate employees to perform better due to the rewards that come with it. This reward can be given to an individual or a team for successfully competing for a project.
• Performance Improvement: Performance appraisals help improve employee and general company performance. With appraisals, employers can easily identify the improvements that need to be made and work on them.
• Employee Development: Employers can identify weak employees who need training through performance appraisals. This training can, therefore, be implemented to help develop employee skills.
• Career Growth: Appraisals can serve as a tool in an employee’s career growth through promotions and development. Performance appraisal forms contain questions that inquire about employee’s current skills and areas they need to improve in. This influences the employer’s decision to organize training sessions for employees.
• Reward: Employees are rewarded for a great job done, during performance appraisals. This helps increase employee morale and overall company productivity.

Conclusion 

Performance appraisals should be a great experience for both employers and employees if done perfectly. Unfortunately, they are often not done at all or are conducted without specific references to extraordinary achievements, or are held in a setting where constructive results are unattainable.

In some cases, they are even done with bias, which may arise from personal feud, corruption, or nepotism. This leaves hard-working employees feeling sad, unmotivated and may even lead to a likely exit from the company.

The company will also bear the brunch of this, as it not only means losing a good employee but also keeping an employee that cannot deliver.