| Abstract: | The student research examined practice of employees’ performance appraisal in Voluntary Service Overseas Ethiopia Office. Descriptive research method was employed to that end. Because of small number of employees, census survey was carried out, and data was collected through questionnaire with response rate of 93.94%. Validity and reliability of questionnaire was checked, and subsequently data analysis was performed by using IBM SPSS version 21. The study findings indicate that the current performance appraisal system (PAS) is aligned with vision, mission and goals of VSO. However, involvement of employees in decision making regarding the performance appraisal process is found to be limited. Overall, the permanent employees of VSO-E participate in the process of setting objectives and targets of their own future performance. The PAS at VSO-E provides an opportunity for employees to communicate with the supervisors to facilitate job performance. Moreover, information generated through performance evaluation is used to diagnose both organizational and individual problems. There exist significant proportion of employees who have the perception that appraisers at VSO-E have not been successful at continuously letting employees know how they are doing and helping them to understand what need to be done to improve performance. Generally, employees have positive attitude to the fairness of performance appraisal system put in place at VSO, but are not confident its practical implementation on the country level at VSO-E. At VSO-E, interpersonal relationships influence the evaluation and decisions in the performance appraisal process. Hence, VSO-E shall work towards building enabling environment for appraisers for them to undertake appraisal based on professional performance only. Significant proportion of employees also reported appraisal done based on gender, religion and the like (stereotyping). Challenging a performance rating that employees think is biased & inaccurate is difficult, and there is also no confirmation that their performance rating could be changed if they can show that it is incorrect or unfair. Generally, the outcome of the research confirmed that the performance appraisal practice of VSO-E has shortcomings that need to be improved. Possible recommendations are outlined at the end of this report. |
