Tip #9 — Orient all appraisees.
The program’s purposes and procedures must be explained in advance — enthusiastically — to everyone who will be affected by it. They need to understand that the purpose of performance appraisal is to benefit them.
How does it benefit them? By giving them the answers to the two questions everyone in an organization wants the answers to: (1) What do you expect of me? and (2) How am I doing at meeting your expectations?
45 minutes to an hour is usually sufficient to orient even large groups of employees to the who, what, when, where, why and how of the new system. But if your new performance management procedure requires self-appraisal, or multi-rater feed-back, or upward appraisal, or individual development planning, better plan on providing specific skills training.
About the Author
Dick Grote is a management consultant in Dallas, Texas and the author of several books. His most recent book, How to Be Good at Performance Appraisals, was published by the Harvard Business Review Press in July 2011.
