A performance appraisal is not just a systematic HR administrative process, but it is an important instrument for facilitating communication between employees and managers. Therefore, performance appraisals are an opportunity for employees and managers to review their past performance and formulating strategies for the future. An appraisal also gives us the chance to set goals individually and for the team. 

An important aspect of performance appraisal is self-assessment. Employees can reflect on their performance and analyze their strengths and weaknesses. Self-assessment is an important tool for employee self-development. Employees have the chance to critique themselves against their competencies. With this, they will be able to improve themselves on their strengths and weaknesses.   

Conducting self-assessments have numerous benefits for the managers. Managers get insights on how employees perceive themselves within their team and the organization at large. Self-assessments also analyze the gaps in communication between employees and managers. Moreover, self-assessments provide an opportunity for managers in terms of receiving feedback from employees on what motivates the employee to do his best.   

As important as it sounds, most employees face difficulty in terms of writing self-assessments. It is not easy. In this article, let us look at how employees can write their self-assessments by following these useful tips:   

Highlight your accomplishments  

One important aspect of self-assessment is to point out your achievements and write about the milestones that you achieved. Highlight clearly the tasks and projects where you have given your best. While you write about your accomplishments, keep in mind how those achievements influenced the business overall. This values your contribution and how they have impacted the company.   

Try to associate your accomplishments with your manager’s goals. With this, your managers will realize how well you understand your responsibilities within the company at large. Connect everything with the objectives of your organization. For instance, if you are doing sales, your manager might have a target of getting a certain number of leads, describe how you played an important role in achieving that target.  

Be critical  

Now that you have highlighted your achievements, it is time that you do some critical assessment. Analyze the times when you had shortcomings while carrying out your responsibilities. Try being honest and do not shy away from pointing out your weaknesses. Write about how your shortcomings have helped you and what you could do to improve them. You must always be willing to identify your flaws because that is how you learn and grow.   

You can be open to criticism. This does not mean that you keep listing down all your flaws. You must ensure that you use positive language critiquing your areas of improvement. Speak about the areas that you want to work on. Write about what you have learned and what needs to be done to move forward.  

Do not stagnate  

It is important for you as an employee that you constantly push yourself by being adaptable. Be open to learning and transformation. You might have done well, and you might have had your pitfalls, but the key here is to be dedicated to your work and find ways to improve yourself. Spend some time writing your goals and objectives for the upcoming year in your self-assessment.   

This depicts how committed you are to your work. It is important that you realize that your potential is limitless, thus keep striving for growth. Change happens in many ways. Sometimes you do your best sometimes you don’t. The solution is to not get attached to your achievements or brood over your failures. Be more flexible because various factors influence your performance.  

Documenting and tracking  

We have discussed earlier that it is important to highlight your achievements in your self- assessment. Make sure that you document your achievements throughout the year because you can always support your achievements with valid proof in the form of hard data. It is beneficial because it serves as concrete evidence of your achievements. This process strengthens your self-assessment.  

It is interesting how companies these days have the technology to maintain all the personal and professional information of the employees in one place. Many companies have performance management software these days, to manage their employees and conduct periodic appraisals. Therefore, half your work is done because you could just upload your documents at the click of a single button.   

Professionalism  

Maintaining professionalism is very crucial when you write your self-assessment. Whether you write down your achievements, goals, strengths, and weaknesses, do not go overboard by being more ambitious or proud and at the same time, do not self-deprecate yourself. Your professionalism should do justice to your self-assessment because performance appraisals are equally important to any other task that you are doing.   

They deserve the same amount of dedication as any other task. The only way you could do justice to your self-assessment is by thoroughly reflecting yourself and supporting your statements with valid examples and documents. You need to keep in mind even the smallest things such as spelling and grammar because it adds value to your language skills and how well you can present yourself on paper.  

Final words…  

Writing Self-assessments is not a skill that you would acquire in a day. It takes a lot of practice and you build this skill only over time. The key is to keep your self-assessments short and brief. Remember, you don’t alter the dress to fit you, you alter yourself to fit into the dress. Similarly, you don’t lead your self-assessment, your self-assessment leads you.