Understanding Performance Appraisals

You use the same process to create either competency based or traditional employee performance appraisals. Competency based appraisals use an extensive system of job and employee competencies that is defined before appraisals are created. You define most of this information when you set up the competency management features of the system.

The traditional appraisal approach uses appraisal templates that are stored in the system as text files and then completed when appraisals are due. An appraisal template can be any media object and is frequently an interactive form on the company intranet.

After you complete either a competency based or traditional appraisal, submit it for automatic approval routing, which is based on a defined approval hierarchy.

When you are using competency management, you define organizational, job, and employee competencies. The competency based performance appraisal system integrates those competencies with employee performance. You track employee activities throughout the year and create employee performance appraisals that compare employee performance with the required competencies for each job.

When employee performance appraisals are due, either a human resources system administrator or managers can create the appraisals. You can create an appraisal for any employee who is the direct or indirect subordinate. After a human resources administrator or a manager creates an employee performance appraisal, the manager reviews the appraisal, updates competency ratings as required, adds notes, and attaches pertinent diary entries.

When creating an appraisal, you can specify whether you will access the review program directly. This option is available only when you create a single appraisal. Although managers normally revise employee performance appraisals, a system administrator can perform this function, if necessary.

After you create the appraisals, the system automatically sends a message to each manager that one or more appraisals are ready for review. If you set up the system to require employee self appraisals, the system also automatically sends a message notifying each employee that a self appraisal is due.

After the manager and the employee have been able to review the appraisal, the appraisal can be approved. If you are using Employee Self Service (ESS), the employee can approve or contest their own appraisal. If you are not using ESS, you can assign delegates, which are typically human resources employees or the employee manager, who can approve or contest the appraisal on the employee behalf.

When the appraisal process is completed, the system automatically updates the performance appraisal information in the Employee Master Information table (F060116). Additionally, after the appraisal process is completed, you can access the appraisal directly from the Organizational Assignment form.