Performance Appraisals: How to Make Them Work.

Despite the wide variety of performance appraisal systems in use today and the enormous effort that is expended to support them, very few systems effectively serve their intended purpose. This paper seeks to analyze the process of evaluating people to determine how to establish a new system or how to work within the constraints of an existing one. It begins with a review of the two primary purposes that evaluating systems serve. This is followed up by an examination of the variety of the evaluating formats used in management today. Next, the many sources and causes of shortcomings with evaluation systems are explored in detail. Considerations in system design are then examined along with ways to increase the effectiveness of a system youre locked-in. The paper ends with a short discussion on the legal contemporary issue of equal employment opportunity.