5 Tips For Employees To Write An Effective Self Appraisal

Rajiv Krishnan, partner & leader-People & Organisation, Ernst & Young shares five tips for employees to write an impactful self appraisal during the
annual performance reviews

Self appraisal or self assessment is an important part of the annual performance reviews conducted within organisations. Generally, employees are
asked to fill a performance review form which gives the employees enough scope to write about their own performance and their key achievements.

One typical challenge which employees face while writing a self appraisal is giving the right tone to his/her own achievements and presenting it in the
most effective way.

In a recent interaction, Rajiv Krishnan, partner & leader-People & Organisation, Ernst & Young, talked about five key areas which employees
must focus on to write an impactful self appraisal.

Maintain a diary of your achievements: One of the challenges of doing justice to writing a self assessment is giving a comprehensive perspective
to all the key achievements one has done in the period of a year.

To ensure that you do not miss talking about any of your achievements, make it a practice to maintain a monthly diary of all the key areas that you
have been working on, relevant emails and also the tangible results that you have delivered.

Be objective: While writing your self assessment, refrain from creating unnecessary hype around your achievements. Be objective and to the point in
your communication. Don’t claim a share of credit for a project which is more than what you actually deserve.

Basically, while framing the self assessments, candidates should neither be boastful about their achievements nor should they underplay it.

Highlight the impact created for the organisation: Rather than writing long paragraphs about your achievements focus on articulating how your
work has impacted the organisation. Elaborate on how your work led to concrete and tangible business benefits for the company, quantitatively and
qualitatively.

No harm in writing about lapses: Out of concern on being questioned during the performance appraisals, candidates are often skeptical of
mentioning their lapses in the self assessment forms. The fact is, it is humanly impossible to be flawless.

Presenting a balanced perspective of oneself and the achievements is extremely important and hence, candidates must not refrain from mentioning
areas that could have been improved upon and hold the potential to be bettered. This demonstrates the candidate’s caliber in rightfully judging his/her
work in an unbiased way.

Write about team achievements giving credit to team-mates: Collaborating with other team mates,acknowledging other’s contribution and
giving them due credit are much sought after leadership qualities that organisations are looking for. Many organisations closely watch the workforce
to identify such employees and make a conscious effort to hold on to such employees, because they help the business to grow exponentially.

So, don’t just talk about your own personal achievements in the self assessment form. Be generous and highlight how your peers, mentors and/or
subordinates played a key role in completion of projects, give them due credit and talk about how you worked with them at various levels to deliver
projects successfully and have learnt from them.