Benefits of Carrying Out Performance Appraisal in Organisations

Formulating employee performance policies and procedures to suit organizational needs can be challenging. Many questions arise, such as how to avoid discrimination, how to improve performance and how to conduct the actual appraisals. However, the availability of model policies and procedures alleviates many of the difficulties faced in policy formulation. Models are particularly useful in the initial stages of policy and procedures formulation. The utilization of models, or templates, for performance appraisal policies has both advantages and disadvantages.
Guidance- Model policies and procedures offer guidance in the formulation of the actual policies and procedures for carrying out appraisals. Organizations just starting out in developing human resources policies may find the entire procedure complex if they do not have some form of template showing what a policy document should look like. In these instances, models offer a guide on issues such as when to conduct appraisals, the method of reporting performance and legal requirements in appraising employees.
Focus on Content- Like templates, model policy and procedures allow the person developing the document to concentrate on the content of the document. This is because the model already offers an outline and the format of an appraisal policy and procedure document. Using a sample policy document to formulate the actual policies and procedure gives structure and uniformity to the document. Additionally, a lot of time is saved during the formulation of policies and procedures; this is because the document developers have an idea of how to go about formulating the policy document.
Different Needs- Although there are general aspects that make up an effective performance appraisal policy and procedures, there is no straitjacket approach or format. The model policies and procedures are only templates and do not reflect the specific needs of each organization. Admittedly, due to the guidance the model offers, an organization may wrongly use the model verbatim as its own policies without regard to organizational needs, such as budgets allocated to appraisals.
Ownership- The successful implementation of policies and procedures requires the organization has an ownership to the policies it has formulated. Using model policies and procedures is like using the guidelines of another organization in appraising the employees of an entirely different organization. If not used with caution, model policies and procedures may fail to be integrated into the overall company policies due to the lack of sense of ownership of the policies and procedures. Owning policies and procedures goes hand in hand with formulating policies and procedures that reflect organizational needs.