E-learning and LMS blog articles

To get the best out of your employees in 2024, now is the time to prioritise key performance management practices designed to help employees grow and develop. One of the key practices to focus on to maximise employee output is performance appraisals. This key performance management practice should be structured, collaborative and frequent – 92% of employees want feedback more than once a year. Performance appraisals need to be focused and purposeful with clear objectives for both employers and employees to work towards as a team. In this blog, we’ve compiled some objectives for appraisal examples for you to consider when structuring your performance management strategy, along with how to go about achieving them.

What is a performance appraisal?

A performance appraisal, otherwise known as a performance review or evaluation, is a structured performance management process in which an employee is evaluated by their manager or superior. It’s a chance for employers and employees to review past performance, identify any areas for improvement, and set goals for future development.

Appraisals may be delivered in a number of formats, from weekly one-on-one catch-ups or in-depth monthly reviews. Each appraisal will take the unique considerations of each employee into account, such as experience, job role, personal goals, and expectations based on role-based tasks and objectives.

To maximise the outcomes of a performance appraisal, the process should be collaborative and structured with clear objectives to serve as a guide for employees and managers to work towards. Let’s explore some examples.

What is performance management? Read our guide here.

Objectives for appraisal examples

Encourage skill development

One of the fundamental purposes of a performance appraisal is to encourage and facilitate development opportunities for employees. For example, throughout this process, managers can identify whether an employee would benefit from skills development opportunities to close any existing skills gaps that may be affecting job performance or to upskill employees to help them progress in their careers. By making skills development a core performance appraisal objective, employers can benefit long-term from a highly skilled workforce with well-rounded abilities that will enable the company to remain agile in the future.

To help employees achieve this objective, managers may wish first to identify any skills gaps. This can be achieved with the help of e-learning assessments. Using a learning management system (LMS), employees can complete assessments that have been specifically designed to highlight a lack of proficiency in certain skills and abilities. When combined with traditional methods of identifying skills gaps, such as simply analysing job performance, e-learning assessments can help deliver an evidence-based and thorough approach to the skills development process.

Once skills gaps have been identified, or upskilling opportunities have been agreed upon, employees can complete comprehensive e-learning training courses designed to help them improve and develop the relevant skills. By using the same LMS that was used to administer skills gap assessments, the skills development process can be easily managed and monitored by simply accessing reporting data in one centralised system.

Management skills development

The performance appraisal process is an opportunity for employees to voice their aspirations for career development, such as a desire to progress into a management position within the business. To ensure that employees feel heard and supported, employers can create management skills development courses for employees to complete. When a company makes a conscious effort to support existing employee succession rather than hiring externally, it can expect to see higher employee satisfaction levels and reduced turnover.

To support employees with management skills development objectives, e-learning courses that focus on soft skills such as communication and conflict resolution can be assigned. Using LMS reporting tools, managers with administrative access can retrieve reports that automatically gather data on areas such as management course assessment results and engagement levels with management development courses. Employers can use this data to support the selection process when identifying a suitable candidate for promotion opportunities.

Soft skills training: 5 soft skills examples that can be taught with e-learning.

Team collaboration

One of the most common objectives for appraisal examples that can have a significant impact on entire teams is to encourage collaboration. If during a performance appraisal it has been highlighted that an employee should make more effort to collaborate with other team members and contribute to the wider group, there are several ways to help employees create and accomplish an objective that revolves around team collaboration. The most effective way to achieve this is to use a learning experience platform (LXP).

An LXP is a user-centric platform that requires employees to play an active role in collaborating with their peers through knowledge-sharing, content-sharing, teamwork exercises, and communication tools in a virtual environment. For example, a key activity for an employee to complete when working towards a collaboration objective would be to create their own content for fellow employees to access and learn from. Using an LXP, employees can share any skills or knowledge that may be beneficial for the rest of the team, boosting team collaboration as a result.

Discover Totara Engage - the powerful LXP that can empower your learners.

Increase productivity

Performance appraisals will often provide an opportunity for managers and employees to identify any areas for improvement such as knowledge gaps that are affecting job performance. Once identified, they can formulate a plan and carry out activities that address these concerns, increasing performance and productivity as a result. To help employees stay on top of these key activities, managers can use a platform such as a performance management system that provides a thorough and transparent record of progress and activity completion.

For example, Totara Perform offers the full spectrum of performance management tools in one platform. By using this platform for regular performance appraisals, both employees and managers can input information such as completed activities and use this information to create an evidenced audit trail. This can include attached documents or refer to any development opportunities that have been carried out on an LMS or LXP. By using these tools, managers have a clear picture of employee development progress and productivity levels.

What is a performance management system? Read our ultimate guide.

Create long-term goals

To get the most out of performance appraisals and the performance management process, managers need to think about developing short-term objectives along with long-term goals that serve as a consistent source of motivation for employees. Long-term goals may be examples such as to take on more responsibility or to progress into a new position within the company. To support employees and to help them stay on track, managers must work with them to set out a plan and create a clear path for achievement.

One way to achieve this is to use the goal-setting framework in Totara Perform, which supports objectives and SMART goal-setting with a clearly defined and measurable definition and criteria. If using Totara’s full suite of e-learning solutions, managers can use the goals functionality in Totara Learn which offers a range of detailed goal-setting functionality with options such as goal scales, goal frameworks and goal types. By using these tools, employees have clear targets and guidance that ensures they stay on track with long-term goals, while carrying out development tasks using e-learning software allows managers to easily measure and monitor progress, which can then be used to formulate discussions during appraisals.

Upgrade your performance management with a Hubken solution

Maximise the potential of your workforce with effective performance management practices that are supported by powerful e-learning tools and software. Whether using a performance management system or the full suite of e-learning tools in a TXP, you can expect to elevate your performance management practices and yield better results from your employees. Get in touch with us today to discover our comprehensive e-learning systems or visit our product pages to find out more.