Ah, the dreaded annual appraisals. Does anyone enjoy hearing about their strengths and weaknesses? Thinking about what they would like their journey in the next year to look like?
Appraisals can sometimes feel like a box-ticking exercise executives like to ensure that everything is progressing as it should within teams. When used correctly, they should instead be a great way for managers to uncover strengths and weaknesses in their teams. Don’t think of it as a way for you to scrutinize every action taken in the past; it should be a way for you to uncover a path to take forward in the future.
A great way to do this is through self-appraisals. Though they can require a little more buy-in from workers, they can reveal a great deal about a person’s journey and what they wish to achieve through personal and professional growth at their company. These insights help you build a more fulfilling workforce, while also boosting productivity across teams.
What are self-appraisals?
During an appraisal, an evaluator takes a look at the behavior, actions, and results of individual workers. This can cover a wide range of examples (which we will explore later), to be compiled into analysis so you can determine how your employees feel and what they think is working, or not. A self appraisal could be a pulse check to understand the general mood and sentiments of staff, or it could be after a major project to reflect on how business and operations were conducted during that project.
The “self” part comes in as it is the employee themselves who act as the evaluator. They look at their own behavior and actions and provide judgment as required. This can reveal some insights that a supervisor might miss, especially if it is a leadership member part of a completely different department altogether.
Why choose self-evaluation?
When performance review season rolls around, there’s many paths you can take. Incorporating self evaluations provides one crucially important factor that all the other options do not have: the perspective and feedback from employees. Your employees are in the trenches of daily operations and have firsthand experience and insight into what hinders productivity, what helps, and how the company values fit into it all. Let’s take a deeper look into the benefits of self-assessments:
Taking responsibility
Self-appraisal comments focus on how an employee feels about their own performance. It requires each person to take responsibility for their work and present it to the people who care about the results and what it took to get there. This is a rare opportunity for employees to be candid about their specific contributions to a team’s success and a chance to share context about shortcomings with higher-ups.
Nurturing relationships
We only get to know one another better at work when we talk to each other. There are a thousand and one ways to hold a conversation, about a million different potential topics. Promoting self-appraisals gives everyone the chance to voice their opinions. In louder offices, some employees may not usually get a chance to speak up, but their appraisal allows them to be heard.
Opening two-way conversations
For the employee and manager to get the most out of a self-appraisal, it should be a two-way conversation. It’s not a time for employees to list all of their grievances, nor should managers hijack the conversation. Make self-appraisals an exchange between the employee and director.
Developing careers
Professional development is most effective when the employee is the one who can dictate how their career progresses. Though managers can help formalize a development path, ultimately it should be the employees who know their strengths and weaknesses. This allows workers to set their own future and decide where they want to develop their talents in the future.
What are some of the drawbacks of self-evaluation?
There will be some drawbacks in asking an employee to undertake their own performance review. While this is a good exercise that you should hope your workers dive into, be on the lookout for some of the following behaviors.
Misleading
Some employees can panic when having to talk about themselves. Rather than be honest about their contributions or achievements, they instead decide to talk about what they think their manager wants to hear. This can result in a misleading appraisal that will not actually help them make improvements or identify areas where they could use support.
Exaggeration
During self-appraisals, some may fall victim to either under- or over-exaggeration of their part to play in projects. While this can lead to misleading results, it is important to highlight it in its own right as the employee may actually be unaware that they are doing so. They need to have a clear idea of exactly what they bring to the table if they are to present a fair picture of their achievements and areas in which to grow.
Ego
When someone has a self-inflated view of their own contributions and position in a company, this is reflected in their self-appraisals. If someone has an ego, they may demonstrate some of the behaviors listed above, and it may be difficult to get them to understand that they are not delivering the stellar performance they think they are.
25 self-evaluation examples
Personal Strengths
1. I quickly learn and implement new skills, which in turn has significantly helped me to contribute to projects.
2. I set measurable goals for myself with a plan of action to help me achieve them in a reasonable timeframe.
3. I enjoy tackling new tasks, especially challenging ones, and I have had the chance to build on my problem-solving skills through my work over the last year.
4. I take great pride in my work. Meeting my goals motivates me for the future.
5. I provide regular, thoughtful, and constructive feedback to my team when they ask for it.
Personal Weaknesses
1. This project highlighted a weakness in my task management. I have examined where the problems arose, and I am searching for a solution to address them best.
2. I find it difficult to find the right words to express my opinions and needs correctly.
3. I struggle with balancing the priorities of multiple tasks and projects.
4. I feel like I could not easily collaborate or exchange ideas with senior leadership.
5. I have no problems communicating my ideas in writing, but I feel that I need to improve my ability to express my thoughts to an audience.
Collaboration
1. Giving and receiving peer feedback has been motivating and has clearly shown me where I can develop my skills to better aid the team.
2. I look for opportunities to take ownership of new projects where I can.
3. I took ownership of 40% of new projects allocated to our team in the last quarter. In the next, I would like to increase this and take on new leadership responsibilities.
4. I try to make myself as approachable as possible so my team knows I am willing to support them at all times.
5. I encourage everyone to speak up and offer their opinion on a project. Even the most difficult of conversations need to be given space if we are to maintain a positive work environment.
Communication
1. I schedule regular team meetings to ensure everyone has visibility on each other’s progress and blockers.
2. I actively listen to and interpret what others have to say.
3. I promptly respond to emails and other messages sent to me.
4. I am aware that I overly use email as my primary mode of communication. In the next quarter, I intend to diversify my communication methods to better meet the needs of each individual situation.
5. I strive to handle disagreements with care so that team dynamics are not overly damaged and everyone’s voices can be heard.
Productivity
1. I’ve consistently met my project deadlines while delivering quality work that exceeds expectations.
2. In high-stress periods, I feel like my productivity slips, leading to a decrease in my well-being altogether. I would be interested in developing tools and techniques to help me manage these situations better.
3. I consider myself to be flexible and adaptable. I enjoy seeking out new and innovative solutions to help me improve myself and the team’s work environment.
4. I actively use my communication skills to keep others informed about advancements in the project. This allows us all to effectively maintain momentum in project development so we can deliver results that exceed expectations and are always on time.
5. Meeting and exceeding my achievement goals helps to motivate me to continue performing to this high standard in the future.
Shape the career you envision
You think you’ve had a bad year. All your team members deliver targets way beyond your reach. Maybe you even privately think your boss hates you. A moment of self-reflection can help you see past the anxieties and potentially find areas where you have shined.
Even if all you can see is a poor job performance that needs improvement, this is still no bad thing! Having a sense of self-awareness is a great and under-appreciated trait in the world of business. Continuous learning only works when we are willing to engage with our flaws as much as we do our strengths. Investing in personal development and nurturing career aspirations must be something that we all take the lead on.
A self-appraisal can feel odd. Either we are trying to think of positive feedback for ourselves or we want to hide performance that maybe we aren’t proud of. However, by being honest and diving into our self-directed performance evaluations, we can discern where we need support and where we can offer our expertise in our workplace. This is one area of career development that you really can make work in your favor!
