Like with most people, it is best to do a little check on life’s resolutions when the year is ending to evaluate whether you have attained your goals and the areas that need improvement.

As an employee, self-evaluation is very important because it helps you determine your performance and skills.

According to the balance careers in their article on employee self-evaluation, an employee self-evaluation will enhance the performance management process; employee self-evaluation ensures that employees prepare thoughtfully for their performance development planning or appraisal meeting with their manager.

It provides a useful opportunity for the employees to seriously consider their level of performance and contribution.

Emmy Nshimiye the human resource manager at Safintra Rwanda Ltd says that as institutions do performance evaluation, they also need to give time to employees to do their own individual self-evaluation.

"A well-written self-evaluation can be a very good tool for improved performance in any set period of time, but again it takes time. It’s not something you can do in 20 minutes, nor in a day. People need to spend whatever time it takes to ensure that it shows their worth.”

"When the year is about to end, I do an evaluation to determine if I delivered what I was supposed to and what I need to improve for the coming year. This has helped me a lot in organising myself as an employee but also as an individual in life. People need to know that this kind of evaluation helps you to expose your potential and be able to spot out different kinds of opportunities,” says Natacha Uwamahoro, who works as an accountant.

Andy Mugabo a communication specialist says that an employee can use self-evaluation as a tool for promotion.

"It is a really nice way to track if you have a chance of getting that promotion you worked hard for the next year. And also, it helps you determine whether you need to work harder to get the promotion,” he says.

Nshimiye says that after having an individual self-evaluation policy in place at his workplace, a lot changed as far as performance and career development is concerned.

He explains that the policy was able to achieve that by guiding employees to have self-evaluation in areas such as collaboration and teamwork, leadership, problem-solving, decision-making, communication, time management and service delivery.

"Employers need to give their employees time for self-evaluation and take the lead where possible instead of only focusing on acquiring reports of the previous and coming period. Self-evaluation is very important for human capital development in an institution,” Nshimiye adds. 

When writing a self-evaluation, areas to look at can include but not limited to promoting your success, addressing areas that need improvement, recording of accomplishments and setting goals.