Stress-free Performance Appraisals | Sharon Armstrong, Madelyn Appelbaum

Stress-free Performance Appraisals | Sharon Armstrong, Madelyn Appelbaum | Great tool for HR practioners!

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	Stress-free Performance Appraisals Sharon Armstrong, Madelyn Appelbaum Career Press, 2003 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Performance appraisal is one of the most important, continuous responsibilities of a supervisor. This book takes you through the process of conducting a performance appraisal, where you determine the quality of an employee's performance compared to set objectives, clarify present expectations, and learn the importance of providing employees with positive feedback. The authors break the process down into several steps starting with the planning, the preparation, and the writing of the performance appraisal form. The next step is to discuss the performance evaluation. You will learn how the supervisor should start the meeting, what needs to be included, how to close the meeting, and the follow-up responsibilities. It also covers some of the legal issues that can surround every performance evaluation. Tips on how the supervisor can protect his or her interests as well as the company's are also provided.

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Fresh Perspective to a Tired, Worn Topic

As an experienced human resources professional, I have dreamed of the day when I could create a succesful performance appraisal program. And I had concluded that there was absolutely no way to please everyone. Cheer up -- Stress-free Performance Appraisals offers a fresh perspective to this tired, worn topic.

The text is, surprisingly, useful for human resources professionals, managers, and employees. It is visually attractive and chocked full of valuable questions, extensive documentation, great examples from well-regarded organizations, and ideas to cover a variety of cultures and performance appraisal philosophies. As examples of their recommendations, the authors weave -- chapter-by-chapter -- the scenarios of three fictional employees with varying performance levels. The book is an easy read in about three hours.

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Great tool for HR practioners!

This is a great resource for HR consultants and practioners who are creating innovative performance management systems for their organizations. It addresses the underlying issues that prevent organizations from successfully managing performance and delivering candid and constructive feedback. I highly recommend it to all of my clients.

Top Flight Advice From A Known Expert

Sharon Armstrong is a known expert in the field of performance appraisals and human resources training and her latest book does a fantastic job of covering a critical issue for any manager. This is a must read for any manager or would-be manager - its well-written, easily readable, and has the capacity to improve any workplace. Strong reccommend!

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Packed With Knowledge!

Everyone, it seems, hates performance appraisals. Some corporate cultures compel managers to "grade on the curve," which means that even good employees may have to fail. Even in less draconian corporate cultures, performance appraisals require supervisors to tell people about their shortcomings, an uncomfortable exercise for both the appraiser and the appraised. Meanwhile, lurking in the not-too-distant background is the threat of litigation instigated by an employee whose appraiser lets slip an awkward reference to race, sex, age or some other legally proscribed subject. This book tells you how to avoid the stress and anxiety of appraisals by focusing on a few basics. Authors Sharon Armstrong and Madelyn Appelbaum provide valuable counsel - albeit not terribly well organized - for people on both sides of the desk, both the supervisor and the employee. We recommend the authors' useful potpourri of advice, role playing exercises, case histories, evaluation forms and observations about appraisals to everyone who participates in a performance appraisal system and certainly to anybody who runs one.

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How to design a good performance review system

The book begins with a foreword titled: "It's not supposed to be this way." The authors outline the problems and issues that many people have with performance appraisals. Then they make two key points. Here's the first one.

"Rather than a painful yearly event, performance appraisals can be viewed as a discussion, a culmination of small meetings held throughout the evaluation period."

In other words, performance review grows out of supervision. The rest of the book assumes that those "discussions" are going on. They're necessary to the process, but they're not the subject of the book.

The authors also make the point that: "In one form or other, performance reviews will continue to be a fact of our work life. This book is designed to cut through the anxiety and make the process, or series of discussions, more pleasant and productive."

Even though there are some people calling for the abolition of performance reviews as we know them, that's not likely to happen on a large scale any time soon. If the place that you work has a formal performance appraisal process now, you can count on having to deal with it for years to come.

I assume that if you're considering purchasing this book you will either be looking for ways to make your company's performance review system better or you will be looking for ways to make the process of actually doing performance reviews with your subordinates less daunting. For that reason, I'll split my analysis and recommendations into two parts.

Designing the Performance Review System

If you are responsible for designing or re-designing the performance review system in your organization, this is a book you should read. The research that's referred to matches up well with research I've done and read. The authors do a good job of presenting it and drawing conclusions.

They're also thorough. There's discussion of the current state of performance reviews, supervisor-employee relationships, scorecards, compensation, and much more.

Working Managers

If you are a working manager who has to do appraisals within your organization's system you will find some helpful material here, too. There's good discussion of how appraisals go off track. The authors cover different kinds of rating errors. And, there's material on actually conducting the appraisal.

But this part of the book is not as strong as the part about designing formal appraisal systems. There's not much depth or reach to the material on face-to-face discussion of behavior and performance issues.

That's because those are peripheral issues for the authors in this book. If you want more on face to face discussion, read my book, Performance Talk: the one-on-one part of leadership, which deals specifically with that aspect of supervision.

That's a quibble, though. Stress-Free Performance Appraisals is a solid, well-researched and well-written book that can help you improve the performance review process in your company.

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