Performance Appraisal Training for Managers

A performance appraisal is a systematic assessment of how someone is doing their job. It is one part of performance management rather than the whole of it, and treating it as the whole is where most organisations go wrong.

Appraisal training at a glance

Format

Eight modules online and self-paced, about ten hours of study, six months to complete

Assessment

Final online exam, 70% pass mark, up to six attempts

Certificate

Awarded on passing the exam, carrying the designation Certified Performance Management Professional (CPMP) from the Institute for Performance Management

Price

USD 950, with no membership or renewal fee

Guarantee

Full refund within 30 days of enrolment, no reason required, as long as you have not gone beyond module 4. See the money back guarantee.

Syllabus

Reviewed and approved by the Industry Advisory Council, nine senior business leaders at organisations including IBM, BP, Dell, HP and Fujitsu

Trial

A full module free before you buy

The mistake almost everyone makes

Running the appraisal and the annual pay review as the same conversation is not best practice, and it quietly ruins both. The moment money is on the table, the employee's job is to defend their record rather than examine it, and the development discussion disappears from a meeting that was supposed to be about development.

Separating them costs nothing and changes the conversation completely.

What a good appraisal is made of

Three inputs, used together. The employee's own assessment of their performance, which is where the useful disagreements surface. The manager's assessment, which has to be evidenced rather than remembered. And 360 degree feedback from the people who work alongside them, which catches what a manager cannot see.

What it is for, on both sides

For the employee it should produce feedback they can act on, goals for the period ahead, a clear account of what development they need, and an understanding of how pay decisions get made. Done properly it raises engagement rather than dread.

For the employer it identifies who the strong performers actually are, where capability is thin, and who could step up if a role opened. That last one matters more than it gets credit for: succession planning is mostly just appraisal records read carefully. Organisations that do this well lose fewer people.

Why the annual review is losing ground

Adobe is the case most often cited. It replaced the annual review entirely with regular check-in conversations between managers and their teams, on the reasoning that feedback a year late is not feedback. Plenty of large employers have moved the same way since. The shift is not away from assessment, it is away from saving it all up.

That is a harder discipline to run, not an easier one, because it depends on managers who know what they are doing rather than on a form and a deadline.

Appraisal, review or evaluation

Organisations use different names for this meeting. Many US companies call it a performance review, and performance evaluation turns up a lot in government and universities. The skills a manager needs don't change with the name on the form, so this is performance review training for managers as much as it is appraisal training.

Common appraisal methods

Most appraisal systems use one of a handful of methods, often in combination. Graphic rating scales score the employee against fixed criteria such as quality of work or reliability; they are quick, and prone to every manager rating everyone a four. Management by objectives measures results against goals agreed at the start of the period. Behaviourally anchored rating scales tie each score to a described example of behaviour, which makes ratings more consistent from one manager to the next.

The critical incident method keeps a record of specific good and poor moments through the year, so the conversation rests on evidence rather than memory. Forced ranking, which grades people against each other, has largely fallen out of use because of what it does to teamwork. 360 degree feedback is usually added to one of these rather than used alone.

Learning to do it properly

Appraisals are covered inside the Certificate in Performance Management, which deals with preparing for and conducting them, the performance management cycle and where the annual review sits in it, and building performance and development plans with templates you can use.

The course is online and self-paced at about ten hours, you have six months to finish it, and it ends in an exam with a 70% pass mark and up to six attempts. It is USD 950, there is a free trial module, and a full refund applies within 30 days, with no reason required, as long as you have not gone beyond module 4.

Who it suits

Anyone who manages direct reports or a team. The material is written primarily for business and industry, though the appraisal content applies equally in government and charity settings.