How To Assess Your Performance Before Appraisals

Self-assessment is very crucial before appearing for your next appraisal. Here’s how you should go about it…

Another year; yet another round of appraisal! But are we prepared yet? Are we certain that we are ready to justify our achievements from last year? Perhaps it’s a yes/no situation. It’s true that one can never be fully prepared for anything, even if he/she claims otherwise. Just like there’s no end to learning; there’s also no end to fine-tune your points before the next appraisal meeting with your reporting manager.

One great way to fine-tune the talking points is to focus on what you did right or things which weren’t in your favour during the last appraisal meeting. Taking some points from your previous interaction, won’t be harmful after all!

We all know that an appraisal meeting is usually an effective tool to give feedback to a candidate on his/her performance. It’s also important to do self-analysis both before and after an appraisal meeting. “After an appraisal, a candidate is eager to find out where he stands among other team members, so that he/she knows their relative performance level. He/she should analyse performance thoroughly post this review in order to improve on all parameters,” suggests Chander Agarwal, joint managing director, TCI.

Agarwal believes that an appraisal meeting is a learning experience for both candidate and an organisation; such meetings provide an opportunity to discuss factors that influenced candidate performance during the period under review. He states, “HR departments also share management’s expectations from the candidate during such meetings, so that they can enhance their performance in the next appraisal cycle. These meetings can also be used for grooming candidates for leadership roles.”

You can assess/measure performance in some of the following ways, as Agarwal points out:

. By doing objective review of his/her performance against preset targets

. By preparing a list of achievements and what couldn’t be achieved during the period under review

. By taking feedback from peers/team members on their performance

. By keeping a track of the overall team performance

. By comparing your performance vis-a-vis performance of others in the function/team, as performance level of others has an impact on your performance.

With your performance varying from year-to-year, it’s practical to think that your appraisal meeting will also have different discussion points; but the basics always remain the same, according to experts. An employee can prepare on these basic talking points and can use some of the learning from his/her past appraisal meeting.

Delhi Daredevils take on weakened Kings XI

Match 1 and a formidable opponent Delhi Daredevils who have been twice semi-finalists and three key players still recuperating from injuries. Chuck out the glitzy opening ceremony and this would hardly be the kind of welcome new Kings XI skipper Kumar Sangakkara must have expected as the campaign for IPL-3 begins on Saturday.

But for Kings XI the comforting factor is that this is the team, which invariably brings out the best in each other. In 2008, they beat Daredevils twice, while a rain-curtailed match in South Africa helped Delhi post their first win against Punjab in 2009. This time around, the onus of giving momentum to the team lies with domestic players. Karan Goel, Reetinder Sodhi, Bipul Sharma and Vikramjit Singh Malik are the ones to count for.

Clearing the uncertainty over team composition, Mahela Jayawardene said, “Injuries are something that are out of our control.

“It’s a new challenge for us. We will have to assess Brett Lee’s fitness and take the final decision accordingly, but Yuvraj and Irfan Pathan practised in the nets and they are fit to play.’’

If Kings XI do not have the services of Lee, the most expensive player in the franchise, Delhi Daredevils too had to forfeit the advantage of Ashish Nehra, AB de Villers (injury) and Wayne Parnell from its ranks.

But with Virender Sehwag and skipper Gautam Gambhir leading the explosive batting order, there is hardly any team which enjoys the firepower and balance of the Daredevils. Still, coach Eric Simmons has a lot to choose from. However, the emphasis is firmly on the importance of “playing as a unit and each player performing the assigned role.’’

And if the Delhi team successfully follows the brief and comes up with a consistent performance, the hosts would have plenty of headaches.