Self Appraisal
I am going to start this post with a statement. Self-appraisals only serve one person and that is the person who is writing it. They do not significantly benefit the line manager nor the wider organization. If you are going to write something that only benefits yourself, then you may as well write it in a way that helps, and in a way where you get the most from it.
Most people managers know what they want to say in their appraisals of staff. They aren’t going to be materially swayed by the content of a self-appraisal. Where a self-appraisal may influence the manager’s appraisal is if there is a gap between the manager’s assessment and the personal assessment. If the gap is large, then the line manager will need to spend additional time planning the discussion that follows to help the individual understand the areas of development.
I occasionally ask my direct reports to re-write their self-appraisal. This is usually when they have been too humble or self-critical and have not acknowledged the high-quality work they have produced in the year. Infrequently it may be the opposite where they have taken credit for work that they weren’t involved in or overstated the importance of a piece of work, but this is very rare. But each time I ask someone to re-write their appraisal I do it from the perspective of wanting them to get the maximum benefit from it. I don’t need their self-appraisal to mirror my appraisal of them and we can spend time exploring where the differences are during the follow-up conversation.
What benefit does the self-appraisal provide? Firstly, it’s a chance to reflect on everything you have been working on in the year just gone. In many cases the objectives that you started the year with may no longer be relevant due to changes in company priorities, changes in roles or changes in market conditions. The self-appraisal is your chance to address and update the objectives to reflect what was required from you during the year. Secondly, it allows you to focus on the areas of work you are most proud or where you feel you concentrated your efforts or made the greatest impact. What did you do that was particularly noteworthy and what would you like to do more of? In which areas did you go above and beyond the original objective or your job description and what was the result of your efforts. Finally, it gives you a chance to address areas where you didn’t perform to your best or where your best efforts came up short. This isn’t an exercise in self-flagellation, but if you can pro-actively flag areas that you weren’t satisfied with, it moves your conversation with the line-manager forward to how you want to address these setbacks.
These three areas are incredibly valuable to us as employees and help us shape our careers. If you can make sense of everything you did in the year, draw out the work that you excelled in and honestly reflect on the work where you needed more development or more effort, you know a significant amount about yourself at that point in time. If you do it honestly, there should be few surprises from your line manager’s appraisal of you. You may still have a blind spot or receive some feedback from other colleagues that you weren’t aware of, but substantively you will have a largely complete picture of yourself in that moment. The benefits of this will accrue when you come to write your objectives for the following year, or you when you come to consider a promotion or changing roles and need to update your resumé. Your self appraisal can become a tool that helps you shape your career.
Most companies have broken the direct link between appraisals and pay. There is still an indirect link whereby companies should be incentivizing their high-performing staff to stay, but how you are appraised often doesn’t directly impact your salary or if it does it is in a minor way. If your company does still assess the following year’s salaries, or bonuses, directly on an appraisal then you are incentivized to be as positive as possible and promote/exaggerate every achievement. Hopefully there is a reasonable moderation process in place to control this, but this is one of the primary reasons why the direct link between appraisals and salary has been severed. For most people I recommend that the tone of your self-appraisal should be even and honest. I prefer to let the facts speak for themselves and I avoid using language more commonly deployed in a resumé. Frequently there is a trade-off in time where your efforts in one area prevented you from focusing on another. Assuming this trade off mirrored the company’s priorities, I would pull this out in my self-appraisal. It shows you are responsive to requirements, can get results when you focus on specific areas and where you haven’t achieved as much on lower priorities it has been by design. If your prioritization does not mirror the company’s priorities, then you should reflect on why you focused on certain work and how you can get better alignment in the future.
In conclusion, self-appraisals primarily benefit you and your development. It is worthwhile reflecting fully on the year that has passed and your performance. I like to build my self-appraisals into an abbreviated story of what happened. The Use of an even and honest tone should temper any desire to exaggerate achievements and at the same time when you read that story back it should avoid any bitterness or recriminations about other colleagues’ performance. If you had to do the year again, what would you do the same and what would you do differently?
Next week I am focusing on the other side and discussing manager appraisals.