What is personal assessment and how can it help you and your team?

​Personal Assessment

Personal assessment can be formal or informal. It is the process of reflecting on your own performance, behaviours and recent work projects. It is evaluating what you did well and what you could do better in the future.

A good time for personal assessment is usually at the end of a project, once weekly/monthly, or whenever you feel like some personal development is needed.

How it helps you

Apart from overall personal development, there are several ways that personal assessment helps you.

Develop emotional intelligence

By taking time to reflect on yourself you are naturally increasing your self-awareness and personal analysation skills.

Improve your skills

Depending on what you are assessing, you are giving yourself an opportunity to enhance your skills. You can realise your strengths and weaknesses and see what you could further train yourself in whether it be technical skills or soft skills.

Achieve better outcomes

With each stage of self-assessment, you get better and better in a small way. By improving your skills and emotional intelligence you are able to be a better version of yourself going forward. With a higher skill level in serval areas, you are likely to achieve better outcomes, whatever that may mean for you. For example, you can move up in your career, and/or achieve your personal and work-related goals.

Have more satisfaction at work

Lastly, by having a process in place to self-assess, you not only begin to focus on what improvements you can make but also what you do exceptionally well! Firstly, improving and learning new things is exciting and can keep your job challenging and interesting. Secondly, when we take a second to realise all the great work we are capable of, we experience pride in our job and feel more satisfied about our work.

How it can help your team

Working on yourself, not only helps you, but also your team!

Become a better manager or colleague

When you achieve all the above during your personal development you will become a better manager and colleague in a multitude of ways. You will have more patience, understanding and ability to look at situations in a more analytical way. You will learn to ask the right questions and problem solve in better ways. This encourages better employee engagement and satisfaction and will create a more cohesive team.

Encourages personal development for everyone

When you simply lead by example, you are able to show others the benefits of self-assessment. You can also pass on templates or tools that you use to help others on your team self-assess. This will create a harmonious and self-aware team.

Helps you analyse and assess others more effectively

By enhancing your own self-awareness, you can also heighten your awareness of others. You might be better equipped to understand when a colleague is burnt out, or when they are struggling. You might also notice more easily where there a skill gaps and where training may be needed. This can help you intervene and be proactive in certain situations to help your employees or colleagues.