Performance appraisal: can we 'manage' away the curse?

Call them what you will--appraisals, evaluations or reviews--performance appraisals seem to be the one organizational ritual that is universally hated. The shortcomings of this ritual, the annual documenting of bouquets and brickbats, are obvious to those who give them and those who receive them. Why do companies continue to do them? To align employee goals with those of the organization; to provide feedback on (and improve) employee performance; to identify training needs; as a basis for merit increases; to document poor performance in case it becomes necessary to defend personnel decisions in court. How can any evaluation satisfy all these objectives? One solution is performance management, a system that helps people manage their actions as a way of helping the organization achieve its goals. Ongoing effort is key to making performance management work. And it gives the employee who's off the track time to climb back on. One company put its appraisal forms online, which allows both employees and managers to update progress continuously. A goal of performance management is to enable employees to see how their objectives tie to the business objectives. Regardless of the system or methods for performance appraisal an organization uses, it will only be as good or helpful as the managers who use it.