I had a great Thursday morning with a client who hired me to implement an appraisal scheme to their manufacturing organisation. In order to really hone in on what the actual needs of the business and the management I took the management team through a rather intense morning of facilitated exercises designed to dive into the issues, problems and possible solutions.

Ok, so by the end of 3 hours, everyone including me was a tad shell shocked and mentally tired but we all did some great work. Using guided brainstorming/exploration/prioritisation exercises we were able to define the scope of the appraisal, define effective measures for this organisation, identify the stakeholders, qualify the levels of engagement and overview a likely communication and learning strategy - suitable to the environment, types of employees and speed of change.

All this work will save time in the future and help the new scheme “stick”. One of the key points identified from the teams previous experience was that appraisals may have been done once and then forgotten about, or forgotten about until the next year (ring any bells readers??).

Most smaller organisations, even large organisations have a few generic forms for appraisal and do little to introduce an effective performance management program, which means that the whole scheme is a waste of management time and do nothing to improve productivity and performance, it actually de-motivates both employee and manager!

Little up front preparation, bespoking and communication could make all the difference.

Of course, management making a commitment to stick with it and be consistent in application will be the final test, but by thoroughly involving them in the design and implementation is a start!