An oft-missed step. For many organisations, performance appraisals are a given – often written into the company's procedures manual. Because we rarely decide whether to do
performance appraisals we sometimes forgot to ask “why are we doing this?”.

First, we recommend that you explicitly separate the organisational objectives from the personal development objectives. While they overlap and of course it could be argued that they are the same, this split allows you to meet the two stakeholders needs openly.

Organisational objectives for performance appraisals

• Clarifying and defining performance expectations
• Facilitating communication and involvement
• Allocating financial rewards
• Determining promotion
• Motivating employees
• Controlling employees actions
• Succession planning
• Cultural change initiatives
• Training needs analysis

Individual objectives for performance appraisals

• Identify training needs
• Identify development requirements
• Gain feedback on performance
• Promote own capabilities to organisation
• Understand expectations

It may be that you do not agree with these lists and almost certainly you would have other objectives to add. Our point is that the building of this list is crucial for it is the yardstick against which you can evaluate your current processes, any changes you design and the final implementation.

Our suggested approach is that you hold workshops that discuss with the various stakeholders what their objectives are.  This often gives your project focus and it allows you to introduce performance appraisals later with the benefits that people are seeking.

This is an extract from our performance appraisal white paper.

Brendan