There are still those appraisal notes to write . A year later, after every single appraisal had resulted in nervous breakdowns and threatened resignations, we were branded a dysfunctional office and hauled off to a hotel in Dartmoor to spend an appalling weekend unburdening our deepest secrets on one another. So much for mutual trust, loyalty and teamwork. In the past, a 'chat' with the boss during which you were told to smarten your ideas up would probably have wound up with you being consoled by your workmates down the pub. These days, after a bad appraisal, you're more likely to go into a huff and call the nearest firm of headhunters, because you have realised you don't really know or trust your work colleagues well enough to sob on their shoulders.
Feedback is king, particularly the continuous sort.
But there is a dearth of proper research into whether appraisals are effective as a management method. As Baron says, 'The CIPD tried to look at the effectiveness of the processes currently in use but failed, firstly because companies don't always collect data on whether appraisal works or not, and secondly because, where they do, they use widely varying methods of analysing the data they do have'. So it seems that Corporate UK has its fingers crossed on the subject of assessing its staff. There is nothing wrong with a good management tool, and there could yet be hope for a decently structured system of staff training and development. But there is something amiss with this phoney language of coaching, inspiration, mutual respect, understanding .It sometimes seems as if the appraisal has been invented as a surrogate for something that no longer exists.