"In the past a leader was a boss. Today's leaders must be partners with their people..."

--Ken Blanchard

Home >> Motivation Initiatives >> Performance Management >> Stage 3

Getting ready to prepare a performance appraisal? An effectively written appraisal requires good information. And where does that information come from? You would have determined your sources of appraisal information in the planning stage and you would have considered the following as potential sources, depending on the performance expectations you established with your employee:

• Ongoing tracking of progress — Use the performance information that has been collected and reported throughout the year.
• Systems data — For many positions, results expectations are tied to financial or operations data that appear in weekly or monthly reports. Pull together the appropriate data from these reports.
• Supervisors' observations and notes — Supervisors sometimes jot down notes when they observe their employees engaging in especially noteworthy actions or write memos or emails to employees with comments regarding their actions. Gather these documents together for review.
• Input from other people — Often, employees' performance is not directly visible to their supervisors, but it is visible to someone. Supervisors can ask project leaders or internal customers for feedback. Rather than asking, "How'd so-and-so do?" supervisors should ask questions focusing on the criteria specified in their employees' work plans, such as: "The report was supposed to meet these requirements. Tell me how it did."
• Employees themselves — Employees are often given responsibility for tracking their own performance and reporting their progress periodically. At the end of the year, employees can provide their supervisors with their accumulated performance data. It is a good practice to spot check this information: do not check out every detail, but select a sample of data points to verify.