Continuous Performance Appraisal

Have you ever felt this way? "Oh darn. Time to do a performance appraisal. How can I possibly remember what the employee has done in the last year? This is so hard. I hate this."

You’re going to feel that way unless you stop making performance appraisals something you do once in a while. Instead, make performance assessment and evaluation a continuous part of keeping your department or business unit running. Then when it comes to review time your official performance appraisal should contain no surprises. It will simply be a summary of what you and your employee have been talking about day to day. Good things and bad things, little things and big things should be embraced by the performance appraisal.

But how do you keep track of these things as they happen?

Many companies ask their managers to maintain a confidential performance note file for each employee. The encourage their managers to update these notes whenever a significant performance element takes place. These confidential note files could be in the form of a secure notebook, a set of secure file folders, or secure computer files where the manager can document significant performance elements as they happen.

When you do a good job of keeping performance notes on an on-going basis, you won’t have the burden at review time of trying to remember and reconstruct what happened in the past. Your official performance appraisal of the employee will be less of a chore. Because you've maintained those on-going notes, you can concentrate your appraisal review time on preparing an accurate performance summary based on the information you already have.

So, if you are not already keeping performance notes on an on-going basis, I suggest you start that process today. If your company discourages or forbids you to keep performance note files, you may want to ask your Human Resources department why (since there seems to be a general trend among companies to use them).


About me: Dan Pelley conducts training programs for supervisors in the New England states, with a concentration in Massachusetts (MA), Connecticut (CT) and Rhode Island (RI). His 4 hour "Effective Performance Appraisals" program can be presented on-site at your location. Call for quotation.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
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