Appraisals and performance reviews

Having an appraisal or performance review should be an interesting and motivating experience; all too often it's either mechanical or poorly managed. There's often an overlap or even conflict too between the two purposes - the purpose of realistically and honestly looking at how a person is doing and what development would be useful for them, and the purpose of deciding whether the staff member is due for or entitled to a bonus or a raise.

If you're new to appraising your staff, keep in mind the five points you need to be clear about:
* do they know exactly what their job is, including the boundaries?
* do they know what doing it well looks like?
* do they get regular feedback on how they're doing (so the annual meeting holds no surprises)
* what in particular motivates them to do the job?
* are there enough time and resources to do the job effectively?