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The four signs your appraisal process isn’t working.
Managers dread it. Employees brace for it. Ratings drift to the centre. And nothing in the next twelve months looks any different because of it. If you have two of the four, you have a problem. If you have all four, the process is theatre.
Why redesigning the form rarely fixes the problem.
Every appraisal redesign begins with the form. New competencies, smarter rubric, more numeric precision. Six months later the form is different and nothing else is. The form is the artefact, not the system.
“Ask managers what the appraisal process is for. If the answers vary, you have a strategy problem, not a form problem.”
The four questions to ask before redesigning.
What is the appraisal for — development, differentiation, or both? What decision does it inform — pay, promotion, both? How does it relate to the operating cycle of the business? And who is responsible when it fails — HR, managers, or the executive team? Without clean answers to these, the form will not save you.
What a working performance system looks like.
Cadence that fits the business. Goals that connect to outcomes the company actually measures. Calibration grounded in evidence, not memory. Managers trained to do the conversation, not the form. And a defensible link between performance and reward that holds up to scrutiny — including under union and statutory review.
