Essentially appraisal is simply an approach to improving personal performance in a changing world. Yet the very thought of appraisals trigger panic in the minds of both those who appraise and those to be appraised. Potentially appraisal meeting should be constructive and useful. They can play a significant part in ensuring good performance in the future; and in competitive times when everything that can positively affect results must be utilised, they are doubly important.

So, let's start by considering their purpose. Appraisals should act to:

• Review the individual's past performance
• Plan future work, work emphasis and overall role
• Set specific goals at an individual level
• Agree and thus create individual ownership of such goals, making them more likely to be achieved
• Provide appropriate on-the-sport coaching
• Prompt action in training and development, and thus maintain and add to skills
• Obtain feedback
• Reinforce and strengthen working relationships
• Act as a catalyst to delegation
• Highlight long-term career intentions, and
• Heighten motivation and commitment

The above intentions are not mutually exclusive, though the emphasis may be more on some than others. For example, there may be little role for on-the-spot coaching at a senior staff appraisal, whereas long-term issues may be more important than at lower levels.

Overall, the intention is clear: it is to act as a catalyst to making future performance better than that of the past. This may sometimes involve identifying and correcting personal weaknesses, but it is just as likely that changes in the environment or the organisation's intentions make changes to what is done, and how it is done, necessary. Appraisal should never be seen as a witch-hunt, and the concentration should always be on the positive and on the future. All the objectives above are generally applicable; indeed they apply to senior people as much as other members of staff.

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