You always must think from the inside if you want to have a correct perspective about your company. You also have to be aware of your performances and not underestimate yourself if you don't want to be underestimated. You must take into account how your manager thinks and what is his work strategy.
You should try to be likable and accept criticism but also stand up for what you strongly believe in and speak up for yourself. You wouldn't feel yourself if you're hiding your beliefs and your certainties for the sake of your good relationship with your manager. You never have to compromise if you don't think the same way. You should instead try and find the best ways to communicate your ideas and strategies.

Dear RK,

A warm welcome (back). We missed you here.

A very thought provoking article indeed.

My two cents :

For getting the most out of your performance appraisal, it is very important to keep some of the following points in mind:
1. Understand how PMS works in your organization. Every organization has a different PMS and it makes sense to be on top of the PMS being followed in your organization. How the process flows and like RK rightly pointed out, the WHO makes the decisions, who are the stakeholders, etc.
2. Begin right at the Fiscal beginning. Know the expectations from your role at the beginning of the year. Dont wait till the HR department sends the mailer to fill the appraisal form. If you know what is expected of you, chances are there that you would conform to the expectations.
3. If Goal setting exercise is a mature process in your organization, spend a couple of sleepless nights over it, after all, its YOUR career you are writing about.
4. Identify your strengths at the beginning of the year with respect to the expectations at your level and come up with a personal action plan for yourself to acquire skills needed, if any. After all, don’t we all do an action plan when it comes to clients ? and follow thru ?
5. Sad to say this, but majority of people feel filling PMS forms are a waste of time. Come on, it’s your work that needs to be brought under the limelight and you need to respect it and FIND time to do it properly. A properly done Appraisal form from the employee is half the job done.
6. The next step would be to do a mid yearly evaluation yourself in case your organization doesn’t have a policy of one. It helps to take a step back and introspect.
7. It is necessary to be objective when we do self-evaluation.

I can go on and on with guidelines, but am sure these would tick.

I am sure if some of these guidelines are followed, it would greatly benefit to avoid last-minute-surprises like I-was-expecting-to-be-promoted, oh-no-my-boss-is-bad, I-need-to-change-my-company, etc.

Regards, Harish

Hello Rk,

A very nice topic. I would like to add the following points to it:

1. PMS is not only to show our positives it is also to have a clear view about where we failed and how we can rectify it or neutralize it. So instead of assuming it to be source to assess our positives only we should also take it as a detailed report to analyze our negatives, opportunities and threats.

2. PMS is also useful to employers to get an overall idea of a particular employee and instead of only concentrating on highlighting the non performing points the employer should also try and figure out why a particular employee is failing on a particular aspect and how we can assess his multiple talents and do competency mapping accordingly.

3. It should always be an encouraging tool to the employees rather than a threatening sword. If it is encouraging then only we can get a true picture of the performance of a particular employee else we will have cooked up self evaluations which will lead either employers or employees no where.


Regards,
Sri Manjari .V