Why Personality Matters in Evaluating Employee Performance and Appraisal

What is Performance Appraisal?

Performance appraisal is a formal, systematic process in which an organization evaluates an employee’s job performance over a specific period. It typically involves comparing the individual’s work to set expectations, objectives, and key performance indicators (KPIs). The primary purposes of a performance appraisal include:

1. 1. Assessing productivity and work quality: Companies measure how effectively employees meet their goals.
2. 2. Providing feedback: Constructive feedback helps employees understand their strengths and areas for improvement.
3. 3. Setting future goals: It helps in creating new targets aligned with personal development and organizational objectives.
4. 4. Making decisions on promotions, compensation, and training needs: Appraisals often serve as a basis for salary increases, career development opportunities, and identifying gaps in skills.
5. 5. Identifying potential for leadership: Companies may use performance data to identify high-potential employees for future leadership roles.

Once the appraisal is completed, organizations use it to:

• 1. Adjust compensation and bonuses based on performance.
• 2. Offer promotions or career advancement opportunities.
• 3. Identify training and development needs to close skill gaps.
• 4. Make decisions about transfers or reassignment.
• 5. Plan for future business needs by understanding employees’ potential.

Using Personality Development to Improve Employee Performance

Personality development can be an effective strategy for improving employees’ self-awareness and interpersonal skills, which play a crucial role in job performance. This can be integrated into the pre- or post-appraisal process in the following ways:

Before the Performance Appraisal

1. 1. Personal Growth and Awareness: Tools like psychometric assessments, such as the IDENTI3 Profile, can help employees understand their inherent strengths and weaknesses, enabling them to focus on personal growth. When employees are more self-aware, they can better manage their emotions and work habits, leading to improved performance before their formal appraisal.
2. 2. Setting Development Goals: Personality insights can help employees set personal development goals aligned with their professional targets. This preparation fosters a proactive attitude toward performance appraisals, reducing anxiety and creating more constructive conversations about progress.

Herjeet Singh, an expert Career Coach who has empowered more than 1,500 professionals to excel in their career goals, says, “Personality traits, such as conscientiousness and openness, can impact job performance significantly. Employees high in conscientiousness often excel in roles requiring attention to detail, planning, and reliability, leading to better appraisal outcomes.

Personality can determine how well an employee’s natural inclinations align with the role’s demands. For example, extraversion may enhance performance in customer-facing roles, while introversion might benefit roles requiring deep focus and analytical work.’

After the Performance Appraisal

1. 1. Identifying Development Areas: After the appraisal, personality profiling can help employees pinpoint specific behavioral or communication-related weaknesses. For example, a profile might reveal that an employee struggles with teamwork or assertiveness, providing a clearer path for development.
2. 2. Tailored Training and Coaching: Once the areas for improvement are clear, companies can offer personalized coaching or training programs designed to enhance specific personality traits or skills. For instance, if an employee shows low confidence or lacks leadership potential, personality development exercises can be introduced to bolster those areas.
3. 3. Building Better Relationships: Through personality development programs, employees learn to work more effectively with their colleagues by improving their interpersonal communication, emotional intelligence, and teamwork skills. This leads to a more harmonious work environment, which positively impacts future appraisals.

Benefits of Personality Development in Performance Management

• 1. Better Self-Awareness: Employees who understand themselves better are more likely to excel in roles that fit their personalities, enhancing job satisfaction and productivity.
• 2. Improved Communication: Personality development focuses on enhancing communication skills, which can minimize conflicts and misunderstandings at work.
• 3. Increased Motivation and Engagement: When employees feel their personal growth is valued, they tend to be more motivated and engaged, resulting in higher performance.
• 4. Smoother Career Development: Companies can use personality insights to guide employees into roles where they are more likely to succeed, streamlining career advancement.

Performance Appraisal Application

Jennice Ong, an ex-recruiter turned IDENTI3 certified Coach says, “There is Performance Appraisal and there is the performance management process itself, where the appraisal sessions are essentially like a feedback session with tangible impact cos it can lead to salary increment, promotion or negative impact like losing some of these things. So having greater self-awareness around both strengths and blind spots can help us prepare for the meeting better, anticipate what are some of the feedback one is gonna be receiving and prepare a good response to it.

My personal observations is that a lot of us tend to find it difficult to articulate our achievements or defend our corner (status, tactfulness, exposition etc), or some have difficulty managing emotions during the appraisal.. we need to be aware appraisals can sometimes mean difficult conversations 🙂

Then there is performance management as a process where the appraisal is really just the assessment of one’s year long work performance in their day-to-day. Now we already know how having better self-awareness can help us become more effective employees, it can also help us fine tune our own development plans, where to showcase our strengths and where/what to watch out for (blind spots).

Using a common profiling tool across the company can also help create a common lingo which then can be weaved into culture and engagement. Companies who do this well usually start profiling from recruitment and apply through the whole employee life cycle (development, performance management, job re-assignment etc).”

Incorporating personality development alongside performance appraisals helps employees see the process as an opportunity for growth rather than just evaluation, creating a more supportive and constructive environment for improvement.