What is it good for?

There are several reasons why to appraise performance. Firstly, it provides information upon which promotion and salary decisions can be made. Secondly, it provides an opportunity to review the subordinate's work-related behavior, which can reinforce everything the subordinate does right and reduce deficiencies the appraisal might have unearthed.

The original intention of a properly used Performance Appraisal is to make it visible for each and every employee how she or he contributes to the success of the organization. The well managed Performance Appraisal increases the level of commitment and involvement of your employees. It enables the organisation to create a learning environment  where continuous development is a natural part of everyday life. Everybody gets reinforcing feedback about things she or he does right, suggestions for further development and support to undertake the actions needed to achieve the goals.

There is no one authentic way how to implement a Performance appraisal system, there are as many different systems as organizations.

Three pieces of good advice how to create your own PDP:

• Create a user friendly model!
  
  You want to instill into the organization something new that requires time and resource investment from the entire organization, therefore strive for simplicity and distinctness!
  
  
• Manage it as a project!
  
  Think about it like a project and follow all the guidelines of a successful project:
      - create a project definition, define the goal
      - decide about the resources
      - make a schedule
      - align all shareholders and stakeholders
      - inform the entire organization about the project process and achieved results
  
  
• Strive for distinctiveness
  
  Rely on "common sense", which warrants you that the produced tool will be understandable, simple enough and powerful.