In America's best-run and most-admired organizations, employee performance appraisal is a vital and vigorous management tool. No other management process has as much influence on individuals' careers and work lives.
Used well, employee performance appraisal is the most powerful instrument that organizations have to mobilize the energy of every employee in the enterprise toward the achievement of strategic goals. Employee performance appraisal can focus each person's attention on the company's mission, vision and values. And ideally, the process can answer the two fundamental questions that every single person in the organization wants the answers to: What do you expect of me? And How am I doing?
But most folks scoff at the idea that there might be a perfect system for doing employee performance appraisal. They think that since their organization is "unique," then their system for analyzing employee performance must be unique, too. How foolish.
Don't scoff - there is an ideal method for the assessment process. In organizations that take employee performance appraisal seriously and use the process well, the system functions as an on-going process - not merely an annual event - by following a four-phase model.
Phase 1 - Employee Performance Planning
At the beginning of the year, the manager meets with each person for discussion on the planning piece of the employee performance appraisal process. In this hour-long session they discuss the "how" and the "what" of the job:
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