Discard Your Performance Appraisal Form. You'll Get Better Results With Just One Question

It's almost traditional to have a cumbersome longwinded performance appraisal form. It's a mere convention. You don't have to follow it. You need to ask only one question. And you'll get far better results than that traditional form can give you.

The question you must ask is this "How will I know when the job's being done perfectly?" It's the heart of professional performance appraisal.

The Method.

1. Make A List. Think of a job: any job of someone who reports to you. Ask the question. Write down the answers. Remember, it's the job you're concerned about not the person who is doing it. If your list looks long, don't worry. You'll eliminate unnecessary issues shortly. And don't be concerned if you're not entirely clear about the answers at this stage.

2. Refine The List. Eliminate anything that can't be definitively measured: eliminate anything about behaviours: that includes everything about issues such as attitude, demeanour, dress, timekeeping, appearance, conscientiousness, loyalty and similar things. We eliminate these because we're measuring a job not a person.

3. Introduce Specifics. Your list probably includes some broad generalizations e.g. "meet sales budget", "keep accurate records of invoices and payments", "use company computer systems correctly". These can all be measured but they're too broad.

To "Meet sales budget" add products, client mix, product mix, frequency and anything else you mean by "meet sales budget". To "Keep accurate records" add which ones, frequency, method, source and outcome, etc.

4. Specify Measurement. Finally you need to state how you're going to measure the described performance e.g. meet sales budget with a mix of 70% current clients and 30% new clients including 10% of all sales comprising new products giving trade discounts no greater than 5% in total and 8% to any one customer ... and so on.

What You've Really Created. You've created a set of performance standards. To tell how well you're going in reaching your goal, performance standards are the answer. Without soundly based performance standards you can't have meaningful performance appraisal.

Other Benefits. Good performance standards mean that an employee can self assess and adjust. Your employees will be in no doubt about the performance you expect from them. They can seek help if the signals are poor. You and the employee have common and agreed expectations. You both agree on the performance that the appraisal will be based on. And both of you can check at regular intervals to see "how things are going".

As behaviours don't form part of the appraisal you won't get involved in disagreements about bad attitude, poor time keeping and interpersonal relationships. These matter only if they clearly affect whether or not the employee is meeting the performance standards.

And there'll be no cumbersome forms to complete and no long, intense and threatening "counselling" sessions.

Conclusion. It's quite extraordinary what you can achieve with just one "right" question. This is particularly so when answers prevent speculation and leave no room for personal opinion. Performance appraisal could become a real joy!