Appraisals – appraisal questions and format

I’ve used this set of appraisal questions many times, with a good response. Employees are given the questions in advance and don’t have to answer every single one – they work like prompts.

• What do you like/dislike most about your job right now?
• Is anyone or anything making your life at work difficult? How can this be resolved?
• Do you feel there’s anything you’re struggling with that you could train on?
• Is there any way you want to expand your range of skills that could benefit the department/company?
• Is there anyone in the department/company who you feel you could help perform better? (yes that includes me!)
• What motivates you most?
• What demotivates you most?
• What have you been doing really well lately?
• What do you think you need to work on most?
• When did you last offer at work constructive critisism? Do you offer it enough?
• Am I giving you enough support or do you need more? If so how can I offer more?
• What can I do to improve as a manager?
• What can we do to improve as a company?
• Is there anything you raised at your previous appraisal that you feel has not been adequately dealt with?

A week before the appraisal, the employee’s manager also gets an email prompting them to go over another set of questions. These go something like:

• What has [employee name] been doing really well lately? (name specific projects, achievements, personal and professional)
• What do you think [employee name] needs to work on most?
• Do you feel there’s anything [employee name] is struggling with that he could train on?
• Is there any way [employee name] could expand his range of skills that could benefit the department/company?
• What feedback do you have on what was discussed at [employee name]‘s last appraisal? Has all agreed action been taken?

The appraisal then takes place and the manager goes over both the employee’s concerns and their own feedback. A plan of action is agreed. The manager makes notes and mails these to the employee who has a record of the action plan.

At our company, we started doing these every month but found this too onerous. We now do these every 3 months. In between, managers offer a 10:10 appraisal – this is simply 10 minutes for the employee to raise any issues that they want to raise with the manager, and vice versa. The same notes are taken, and an action plan produced which is mailed to the employee.