Appraisal Letter - Meaning of Appraisal Letter and Its Importance | HRMantra HR Software

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Appraisal letter is an HR letter issued to employees after their performance appraisal cycle to appraise their performance.

As an HR professional, the appraisal season or cycle of the year is one of the most important times. Issuing of all appraisal letters, including assessing performance in the cycle of your subordinates, has a major role to be played by HR professionals.

Basically, the appraisal letter indicates and notifies the appreciation for the performance at work. The letters are issued by HRD after going through the review of aligned KRAs and KPIs.

Appraisal letter is a tool of encouragement and motivation. This letter builds up the trust among the employees, offers them a sense of achievement, and lets them feel their value in their workplace.

What Information is Commonly Included in an Appraisal Letter?

Every letter issued by the HR department has a specific purpose and information. In the salary appraisal letter, the following information is commonly included—

• Overview of key responsibility areas (KRAs)
• Review of KPI''s.
• Strengths and opportunity areas summary in that cycle of the appraisal
• Validation of monetary appraisal, promotion, perks, bonuses and other benefits
• Recommendation towards upskilling or certifications

To gain insight better below is the example:

Dear [Employer''s Name] Dear, [Name of Company], through this letter, is communicating the performance insights for this review cycle starting from [start date] to [End Date]. We highly acknowledge and appreciate your contribution and effort toward your team''s success in attaining the set goals of our company. Your ability to is par excellence and shall be a role model for others. As there is always an improvement area, even for you, one should work on . We trust you to be the prudent personnel. Subject: Promotion Congratulations! We wish to acknowledge your dedication to the organization and we''d like to refer you for promotion as together with amounting to increase in pay. We believe this promotion is going to induce you to do better and work smarter to be successful overall. You are an asset to our organization, and your commitment is really appreciable. Congratulations! Sincerely

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When and how is an Appraisal Letter Typically issued to an Employee?

Appraisal letters are mostly issued after the performance appraisal cycle, exactly after the face-to-face discussion with employees, their leads, and the HR department.

Appraisal letters are normally issued on an official email ID of employees.

How does an Appraisal Letter Contribute to the Performance Review Process?

An appraisal letter is, in essence, a document from higher authority, summarizing the rewards given and recognition made, addressing the gaps between goal setting and achieving, and strengthening the confidence of employees after the review of the performance- more specifically, the performance appraisal process.

Although verbally every performance process could be delivered, but as a part of the process, there is a requirement of an official process and document of the authority, which include appraisal letters getting issued to employees.

When an appraisal letter is prepared, the process for the purpose of determining presents is completed and provides the jump start for the next cycle.

Is an Appraisal Letter Similar to a Performance Evaluation or Review Letter?

No, in fact an appraisal letter is completely unrelated to the performance evaluation or review letter.

An appraisal letter is provided to declare any rewards, recognition, and promotions of the employees, as a result of their appraisal cycle performance review.

On the other hand, the performance review letter communicates whether the aligned goals are up to the mark or not. It is part of a feedback mechanism to address the gaps and optimize the current strategies.

How HRTech can Enhance the Performance Management System?

With tech, from goal setting to sending appraisal letters, each process and workflow can be optimized to be more efficient on the part of HR and save time.

The now latest HCM suites in the market can help HR Professionals:

• OKR mapping simplification using pre-defined templates for goal setting and goal auto-triggering as per appraisal cycle setup
• Tracking of real-time progress of workforce with auto feedback and scheduling of one-on-one meetings
• Improve the precision of the performance review process using tools like bell graphs, 9-box matrixes, etc.
• Send appraisal letters in a click and in bulk by editing the templates offered by the HCM suite.
• Performance analysis through metrics, trends, and bar graphs.

Not just this, HCM suite that specifically offers a performance management system can help you compile year-end data for the review with less than 90% manual effort, making the entire process transparent and ultimately boosting the confidence among the employees.

Appraisal letters are the epitome of trust in employees'' performance.

Appreciating tone, tinge of personalization, and addition of value to your feedback are the very demands of the appraisal letters issued by you.

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