Do you use ChatGPT at work? For appraisals?

[Workshysharon]

It’s mid year appraisal time and I have to write 20 appraisals which I dread. I always end up spending the weekends and find it difficult to write 20 different appraisal essentially saying the same thing with some variety. Has anyone used ChatGPT at work and to write appraisals? I have never used it, but have just signed up hoping to save myself a lot of time.

My manager has to write appraisals for 4 people he is managing so not really comparable to what i need to do. I am still including everything i need to say, i just need help how to say it.

i have been a manager for over10 years so i do know how to write appraisals. Its just the number i have to do.

It's a terrible idea and it will be obvious.

Appraisals is a summary of the year / past 6 months though. You do have to capture it somewhere. And then it’s development plans….

yes it’s a corporate job where people are very ambitious and want to read about how great they are😀

So lazy

I think using it for structure and inspiration is great, just tailor what you get back

I'd do it on excel and merge to a word document that says
'A has had a B period of activity and their accomplishments are C, D and E. In the coming 6 months I'd like to see A concentrate on F and G and see some targets that relate to these set at a level that will stretch A's base knowledge and skills'

And have a spreadsheet with a row for each person, with Name in column A, B is their level of success 'good, excellent, fair, stretching' etc, C D and E are their successes, F and G the things you want them to do.

Then when you merge you will get a paragraph for each person that you can cut and paste into their appraisal.

It's not disrespectful if you tell it specifically what each member of staff, individually has achieved and the objectives they were set and ask it to simply write it up. I use GPT daily to do such things, as well as writing SMART objectives which it does brilliantly IMO. It just saves time, but you do have to still do each staff member individually.

I use it before and after, before to frame some objectives for discussion and agreement and after to write up my notes and order them coherently. Given that the main pint of the appraisal should be the conversation, AI can only be used to help write up your notes and the agreed objectives. It's great at splitting them out into the what, how and metrics for success.

I use it. Why spend hours writing it out when you can put 4 bullet points into chatgpt and ask it to summarize in a paragraph.

This is exactly what AI is good for

You are paid to manage staff and that includes providing them with constructive, useful feedback and appraisals.

If you can't do that you are in the wrong job.

If you have to ask, then you're probably not versed enough in ChatGPT to be able make it work without being obvious. The output from AI is very recognizable, particularly if you're using the free versions and aren't experienced in writing prompts and refining output.

Have you not thought about using cut and paste? After all, how many employees share their appraisal feedback with colleagues vs how many employees might be more knowledgeable about ChatGPT than you are and recognise the output when you try and pass it off as your own?

My company encourages use of ChatGPT so I thought I would give it a whirl.
I was asked for feedback for four members of a team who do not report to me but all their work is assigned and governed by me (they are based in a different country).
I wrote a full paragraph myself and then gave bullet points to ChatGPT and gave both paragraphs to their manager clearly stating which was me and which was AI.
The AI paragraphs were much better than the ones I wrote 🤔

I don’t know what went in to the individuals reports as that is confidential but it was an interesting experiment

I'm not against the idea of a formal record - as @Harassedevictee pointed out, it's necessary. What I object to is the format, that places a lot of burden on managers for no discernible outcome.
Also, appraisals are often glowing, rather than the truth. Because it's used as a shallow comparison tool.
On paper, person A met all their objectives while person B didn't. However, person B had more challenging projects and actually outperformed A considering what they had to work with.
Everywhere I have worked, good managers have just adjusted the objectives etc to make sure person B was shown to have achieved everything, because otherwise their best employees wouldn't be fairly recognized as such.

Your employees are the ones closest to the work. They should be able to write a summary of the time period under evaluation. What they achieved and how.
For example, delivered a new CRM system by collaborating wtih teams X and Y, managed stakeholders.
As a manager, you just need to add your comments on how they achieved it, and the performance rating. That shouldn't take a lot of time

Needing to write lots of paragraphs, using business/HR flowery language is a time sink.

Where does it end though. Could the people you're appraising use AI software to write their own reports, work assignments etc?
If there are similar things you'll say about each person couldn't you just have a bank of phrases you use and tweak, copy and pasting if necessary? I used to have to do similar stuff for about 100 people for some projects. It's not difficult to still be sincere and finding ways to save time. But I'd be pissed off if someone was using this type thing to pass professional judgement on me.

I might not disagree with you here, but I am not the CEO so have to do as I am told and follow the format.

A big thank you to those who understand what I am trying to do. Very helpful. I will give it a go tomorrow and probably pour myself a huge gin while I am working. Then my reports will have their appraisals written by a drunk boss using AI. What’s not to like 😀

I've done it. I put lots of key information in but chatgpt does a good job of presenting it for me. I edited what I was given because some of it was a bit over the top but it helped me massively.

I write 3 bullet points about them. Chat GPT does the rest.

honestly save your life for better stuff.

What's the difference really between having a small bank of phrases or using AI to summarise your points in a coherent way? I'd argue the latter actually requires more thinking about what points you want to make rather than trawling a list of preexisting ones.

Have you used ChatGPT?

Yes absolutely. But for the critics remember it's a copilot not an autopilot.

OP I'd recommend Bing AI it's more user friendly than ChatGPT

Also after RTFT it's clear the critics don't really understand AI and it's use in the professional environment

100% agree. If the main points are there and your company requires full write up over bullet points then why not?

Still valuable feedback. Working smarter, not harder.

I'm all for it but check with your data protection person that what you're doing it gdpr compliant.

I tried ChatGP for reports following a work visit

First read, if the AI produced report - fine.

Read them again and actually they were nonsense.

AI couldn't match the facts needed somehow.

The AI reports didn't really say anything. They were a weird combination of ‘just words’.

Can't really describe it.