The Annual Performance Appraisal Process

The review is the one conversation a year where performance is supposed to be settled. Most managers improvise it. This workshop is about running it properly.
The Annual Performance Appraisal Process
A half-day workshop on a performance review that develops rather than documents: what to measure, how to set goals, and how to run the meeting.

Course record

Most organizations have a performance appraisal process and most managers get through it by filling in the form. The review is the one structured conversation a year in which performance, expectations and next year's goals are supposed to be settled — and it is the conversation managers are least trained for. This workshop covers the process itself: what it is for, what to measure, how to set goals inside it, and how to hold the meeting.

What the workshop covers

  • What the appraisal is for, and how it fails. The reasons an organization runs one, the different forms it takes, and the mistakes managers make most often in conducting one.
  • What to measure. Competencies and the personal key performance indicators that make them concrete, and the rating tools that carry them without turning the review into a scoreboard.
  • Goals set inside the review. The difference between a goal and an objective, and objectives written so they can be assessed — specific, measurable, actionable, reasonable and time-bound.
  • Running the meeting. Preparation, the conversation itself, the language that encourages rather than closes a person down, and the legal exposure a badly run review creates.

Who it suits

Managers who conduct reviews, and HR or operations leaders introducing a process across several sites. It works best alongside Developmental Feedback That Changes Performance, which covers the feedback conversation in general, and Personal Planning, which covers the goal-setting half in depth.

What a manager leaves with

A review they can run without improvising: the measures that matter for their roles, a goals section that is not generic, and language for the review that is honest without being destructive. The test is the next review on their calendar.

Request the Performance Appraisal workshop