Appraisal time is the most looked forward to seasons in the corporate world. The year has ended, and it is time to know how have you fared. It is the Report Card time. Most companies these days have the system of Self Appraisal, or something similar to it, in which you write all that you have accomplished in the year gone by
(basically, beat your own drum), and let the upper management
(the boss, the boss' boss, and so on) decide how much was it worth. This makes it a bit of a marketing game - you need to sell yourself. And just telling the world that you're good, is not good enough. You need to have tangible parameters to prove how good are you. And we know that anything which is sell-able, like Rome, was not build in a day. So here is a list you can refer to through out the year, which will make your appraisal process much better than before.
- The core of the appraisal is Work. Be a dependable employee. Know your job responsibilities well, and deliver work.
- Enroll yourself in any one Company-wide Initiative (the food club, the CSR unit or the transport representative) - this will showcase you as a loyal employee.
- Play a Mentor - directly, within your immediate and extended team or indirectly, by contributing to the Learning-Training-Development team.
- Innovate - look for opportunities of improvement within your team/project/account, and bring about change. Setting up simple protocols like birthday celebrations and monthly potlucks are good team building exercises which can be started at zero or very little cost. Taking the first step is the differentiator.
- When writing an appraisal, write about the work accomplished, with a clear timeline mentioned - you can look up the office mail box for an exact account of work with time.
- Highlight your work and achievements using the nouns from company's core values. Because marketing it right, is as important as doing it right.