I've been doing some research for a white paper we are writing on Best Practice in Performance Appraisals.  I came across an article written for a 2004 conference on performance appraisals.

The authors suggest that performance appraisals are often asked to fulfill the following goals

• feedback
• coaching
• goal setting
• skill development
• pay determination
• legal documentation
• employee comparison
• layoff selection

We often see these composite forms.  If this is all part of a one-off process then I would agree with the authors that the annual performance review is going to struggle to cope.  That said, all of these items look valid to me.  So, we need to tackle them but not in one go.

We often advocate separating forms out and having different sections stand on their own.  Skill development (or training needs) can stand alone and be completed perhaps initially as a follow on from an annual review but then updated throughout the year.  Development / feedback can be handled as part of a 360 degree appraisal process outside of the main annual performance appraisal.

As with our 360 degree appraisal white paper which you can register for from our website, we will make our performance appraisal white paper available to all of our newsletter subscribers.  More research to be done before I'm at that stage though!

Brendan