People in Projects

Employee Evaluation and Appraisal

Cornelius Flynn

PM Network 37 (August 1997)

Just as managers are judged on the success or failure of the projects to which they are assigned, nonmanagement staff—rightly or wrongly—is rated in the same way. Most organizations recognize this, and have in place some system by which all employees, including managers, are assessed on a regular basis by a system generally referred to as the “performance appraisal system.”

An organization’s performance appraisal system generates valid information about employee work effectiveness for the purpose of making informed human resource decisions. A systematic assessment of how effectively each job is being performed, appraisal also tries to identify the reasons for a particular ...