Performance Appraisals & Phrases For Dummies®

Chapter 1. Building Success with Performance Appraisals

In This Chapter

• Facilitating the performance appraisal process from start to finish

• Generating great results with state-of-the-art performance appraisals

• Using performance appraisals to build your employees and their productivity

Many managers see the performance appraisal process as an administrative rite that consumes a lot of time, while producing little more than frustration, confrontation, and piles of paperwork. This reaction is totally understandable if your company is relying on a performance appraisal system that has fallen woefully out of date.

However, as I explain in this book, the performance appraisal process can play a remarkably powerful role in building your employees, as well as their performance and productivity — when it's done right.

Part of the problem with the appraisal process is that managers often see it as an isolated annual set of steps that are separate from all other managerial responsibilities. In actuality, today's performance appraisals are integrated into your ongoing managerial functions, year-round.

As a manager, a key part of your role is to maintain strong contact with your employees and provide them with ongoing coaching, guidance, and feedback. These steps are called performance management. As part of the performance management process, there is a specific time — typically once a year — when managers gather all the performance data on their employees, analyze it, document it, and then provide ...