Retaining top employees has become a growing concern among employers in recent years. With more workers suggesting that they’re undervalued in their roles, getting your appraisal strategy right remains a key challenge for fostering a happy and engaged workforce.  

According to Cognexo’s State of the Employee Experience 2024 report, 45% of the 2,000 office-based workers throughout England and Wales reported feeling undervalued by their employers.  

This perceived lack of appreciation outstripped the 31% who felt concerned about limited growth opportunities, and points to a growing issue with appraisals among UK business structures.  

In the age of remote work, where face-to-face interactions are more infrequent, it’s becoming difficult for employers to spot growing concerns among workers. This may be exacerbating lingering issues surrounding appraisals and negative feelings among employees.  

Worryingly, a separate survey found that 82% of all UK workers who feel undervalued are planning to leave their roles, highlighting the severity that a perceived lack of appreciation can pose.  

These insights suggest that a weak employee appraisal system can have a direct correlation with staff turnover, and upgrading your efforts can carry a direct positive impact on retaining your most talented staff.  

But how can you take steps to enhance your appraisal strategy? Let’s explore four key measures to take to improve workforce contentment through effective appraisals:


Software to Measure Performance


One of the biggest challenges modern SMBs face is gaining 360-degree visibility throughout their workforce, regardless of whether they’re in-house or remote.  

Micromanaging runs the risk of alienating talented employees, but by using the right modern appraisal software, it’s possible to access a holistic overview of employee performance on your terms.

Appraisal software has the ability to facilitate performance reviews on a quarterly, bi-annual, or yearly basis to monitor capabilities and improvement over time. This can help you to determine the strengths and weaknesses of your staff and better understand your top performers while supporting the professional development of your entire workforce.  

Embracing the right software for your needs can also uncover members of your team who may be in need of more attention and additional support, helping to uncover any possible weaknesses that can be overcome.


Build a Performance Ecosystem


Build a Performance Ecosystem

When adding appraisal management systems to your operations, it’s essential that you don’t just focus on individual departments and instead create a performance management solution that integrates with other applications to foster a more conducive work environment as a whole.  

This helps to generate a performance ecosystem that can directly link appraisals to learning resources and upskilling solutions, paving the way for a more hands-on approach to training and retention.  

With unified employee insights, it’s possible to integrate management tools with your broader HR strategy, providing a better view of the organisation as a whole and a positive experience for all employees.


Add Goals to the Mix


One of the most effective ways to help your high-performing employees feel valued in their roles is to create tangible workplace goals and link them to your appraisal process.  

Again, this strategy can link directly to your existing performance software, helping to provide a holistic view of who is working hard to achieve their targets and which staff are in need of support.  

Whether you set goals based on individual projects or incorporate them into performance reviews, it’s possible to use clearly defined expectations, timelines, and contributions to create a more formulaic approach to appraising those who meet their targets.  

Because different employees can have varied goals in terms of scale, it’s worth breaking larger goals into smaller, measurable tasks that can fit into a given timeline. You can also consult each employee before setting your targets to ensure that there are no circumstances that could create an unfair playing field between team members.  

Fairly rewarding these goals can be a great motivator for employees. Whether it’s cash rewards, extra annual leave, or discounts at local businesses, creating a desirable prize for achievements can go a long way in fostering engagement.  

However, it’s also important to bear in mind that failure to achieve set goals isn’t necessarily a sign of underperformance, and that projects can experience problems that make certain challenges more difficult to achieve. With this in mind, you should take a sympathetic stance when discussing missed targets with workers.


Encourage Self-Evaluation


Another great approach to incorporate into your appraisal strategy is to encourage self-evaluation among your staff.  

This can be an illuminating practice and gives your employees the opportunity to think about and assess their own performance. Crucially, this can inform you as to whether their opinions align with your performance management insights.  

Allowing employees the chance to consider what areas they excelled in, as well as the aspects in which they can improve, you’ll be able to fine-tune your target setting to help them overcome their perceived weaknesses. For more information, you can check out an in-depth blog on employee self-audits, which describes how internal reflections can greatly contribute to the overall development of a workplace.  

This approach can also allow staff to talk more freely about any feedback they may have on the business itself. To take this strategy to another level, you can consider incorporating one of the top HRMS tools that can simplify feedback loops and improve employee appraisal workflows.


Enhancing Retention


Appraisals can not only enable your employees to feel more valued, but they can also help every member of your workforce to improve their productivity in an engaging way and become more motivated to reach their goals.  

In creating a clear and conducive appraisal strategy, you have the ability to improve your operational efficiency across the board, all without the trouble of having to continually onboard new hires to replace discontented staff.