Improving Formal Methods of Performance Appraisal

Summary

There are many different reasons for formalizing employee evaluation and coaching for development. There are just as many arguments against it. Rather than wading into the debate this article assumes that organizations have, for various reasons, committed to their decision to use them. It therefore focuses on explaining why the most popular of these may not be meeting expectations and how organizations can use the PAF feedback process to improve them.

Why formalized performance appraisal and development processes do not meet expectations

Performance management systems generally use some kind of structured standardized form that managers fill in in order to to appraise employees in a consistent way. The most popular appraisal systems include the following approaches:

·    Ratings

·    Competency

·    Objectives

·    360 degree

·    Forced ranking

Development systems include the annual meeting, coaching/mentoring programs and promotion/selection processes.

An explanation of how this problem manifests itself for each of the different appraisal and development approaches is outlined below together with an explanation of how PAF feedback can be used overcome that problem.

Ratings Approaches

We know that when managers look at a typical rating form with a given employee in mind they generally “know” where that employee should fall on the continuum. For example:

• If they think that a given employee is doing really well on a specific item, say “leadership ability”, then they have no problem in ticking a “5” (or whatever the highest rating happens to be labelled).

• If they believe that the employee is more average in this area then they will check the “3”. However, if they don’t feel comfortable with having to face the employee with a “3” they might try to up the rating to “4” provided it is not too much of a stretch.

• However, if they genuinely feel that the employee “has no leadership ability” then they will avoid checking the “1” or “2” if possible. Instead, they will up the rating to “average” and pray that it is the end of the matter.

The top ten percent of employees end up with honest appraisals because it is easy for the manager to be truthful. The “acceptable” employees and sometimes even the “poor” ones will get candid assessments of the good aspects of their performance but not the negative aspects because managers don't know how to do this effectively and want to avoid having to “get into it”. In other words, these employees often end up with “average” appraisals that tend to be superficial and/or sanitized, which means that they have no real idea of how they are really doing. At best, it results in the maintenance of the status quo, at worst it can lead to misunderstandings, misperceptions, and perhaps even disengagement. 

Previous Attempts at Improving Rating Forms

Efforts to improve ratings approaches in the past have concentrated on either trying to make the process more efficient to implement or to improve the actual form:

Making the process more efficient to implement: These have focussed on streamlining the administrative aspects of the process. Making forms available online, for example, only makes the implementation and administration process more organized and less wasteful. It does not mean that managers will be able to complete the actual appraisal any more effectively than if it was available in a paper version.

Improving the way performance is measured: These have focussed on elements like, customizing the items to be rated, ensuring each item is clear, tweaking the measurement scale, adding “comments” sections, etc.

As is clear, focusing on improving the instrument or its ease of use without addressing the root cause behind why it is not working to begin with is akin to putting a Band-Aid® on a gaping wound. It simply does not get to the root cause of the problem – which is how make it easy for managers to improve the honesty of the rating that they give as well as the quality of the explanation and discussion that should accompany it. 

Since PAF feedback is is designed to make it easy for managers to explain a rating in a way that the employee will understand, accept as valid, be motivated to change AND preserve the employee/manager relationship, it can be used to improve ratings forms in the following way:

Add a “rationale for rating” section for each item to review. Its completion must be mandatory regardless of whether the employee’s evaluation on the item is “good”, “bad”, or something in-between. (Note: This is NOT the same thing as the old voluntary "comments” section).

·  I’ve rated you a “5” on technical knowledge because …

·  I’ve rated you a “3” because …

·  I’ve rated you a “1” because …

Implications

Of course, providing explanations using PAF requires managers to do more than just tick boxes. Therefore, if organizations want to improve the quality of performance appraisals there is no getting around the fact that it means that managers would have to do some additional work.

Many people within the HR function believe that this is too high a price to pay because they know that it is hard enough to get managers to complete the appraisals as it is. They are right about the time issue. The forms associated with the annual appraisal have become longer, more detailed, and more complicated than ever. For example, one evaluation form seen recently had 19 main items. Of these, 18 had an average of seven sub-items. That adds up to over 100 separate things to evaluate, not to mention the “comments” for each of the main ones.

This increased length is probably due to the feeling that adding items to evaluate will force managers to provide a more detailed picture of an employee’s performance. However, again, this is not the solution to the problem because:

• Quantity does not necessarily equal quality. Breaking performance down into such minutiae is self-defeating because it goes against the natural way that managers use to evaluate performance. The use of fewer, more general, and more meaningful, “evaluation items” would fit far better with the higher–level, more intuitive reasoning that managers use when forming their assessments.

• It does not address the root cause behind why the forms are not getting meaningful information from managers to begin with.

If we want managers to provide employees with this yearly snapshot of their overall performance and to explain it well (using PAF), then we need to reduce the number of separate items they need to evaluate. The result is a more succinct, efficient, and effective form.

Reducing the number of items to rate would not mean a less comprehensive appraisal. The form would evaluate the same things (or the most important things) but it would do so using fewer items (say, 10 rather than 30, or 40).

This means that managers will always have the “not enough time” excuse.

HR will still need to ensure compliance in much the same way as it does currently – namely, chasing managers to complete their appraisals on time and in the desired way (unfortunately, PAF cannot change human nature!)

While these changes will reduce the number of overall items and make the form more succinct, efficient, and effective, it will still take about the same time for managers to complete it. This is because writing the PAF explanation for each rating takes time.

Competency-Based Approaches

These approaches fall prey to a similar problem as the one described above for ratings scales. If a manager identifies a gap in a given competency, say “communication”, he still has to be prepared to explain why he or she identified the gap in the first place, and how the employee can close it.

While the generic definitions and behaviour descriptions that create performance “standards” in any given competency can be good starting points for defining non-quantifiable behaviours, their generic nature means that they are of little help when it comes to providing practical assistance for managers dealing with individual cases. For example, what if a manager has come to the conclusion that one of his employees is a “know it all”.

How does a manager use a competency-based approach to address this issue?

First, he has to find a competency that is closest to the situation. Since this issue essentially boils down to one of communication perhaps he should choose that? However, would a standard competency definition of communication help to give honest and effective feedback in this case? Compare a typical definition for Oral and Written Communication (taken from a real organization’s Competency Handbook) with the actual situation (see below).

While the generic definition definitely makes sense in general terms, the examples provided do not quite fit with the specifics of the actual situation.

Moreover, even if they did, it would not have helped the manager give effective feedback because the examples of behaviours are still only general descriptions. In other words, even if they fit exactly (for example, if the manager thought that the employee was not providing a balanced view, he would still have to explain what he meant by that. In other words, back to square one. This is the hard part!

Since PAF is designed to solve this problem, it can be used to improve to improve competency- based approaches to formal appraisal in a similar to that outlined above for improving ratings approaches. That is, require managers to use PAF to explain the reasoning behind their evaluation of each competency.

Again, this recommendation will work much better if there are fewer competencies to rate and these competencies are larger and more general in scope rather than smaller and more specific.

Alternatively, if reducing the number of competencies is not a viable option, then the organization could simply require managers to use PAF if they identify a gap in a competency and the existing definitions do not cover the problem situation adequately.

Objectives-Based Approaches

When organizations appraise employees on pre-defined results, a different manifestation of the problem arises. For example:

"I managed a team that was given the task of developing the corporate website. It needed to not only provide all the relevant information that we wanted on the site but it also had to have a “look” that projected the company’s image. Joan was the graphic designer on this project. When the project was finished, it was determined that the team had “met expectations” and all the individuals received the appropriate bonus. Congratulations all round!"

However, the less tangible side of this result, which was never talked about (not to Joan, anyway), was:

"On the other hand, I would rather not have Joan work on a project for me again because I don’t think that she is a team player. She had a tendency to get very defensive about her work. She did take feedback from other members and made the suggested changes, but she did it grudgingly and took an “I’ll do it, but I don’t have to agree with it” attitude. I didn’t know how to confront her with this at the time, but I know that I don’t need the headache of dealing with it again."

You can see how bringing in such feedback could confuse the whole issue of results, because there is no real place for it within the process. Yet, this behaviour is an important component of the overall performance and it is therefore critical for Joan to have because, even though the manager does not rate it in a formal way, it looms large when he or she mentally evaluates the employee.

Moreover, it is this subjective mental assessment (and not the official rating regardless of whether it said “met” or even “exceeded” expectations) that will determine what happens the next time a team assignment comes up, a promotion opportunity arises, or if a graphic designer has to be cut due to reorganization or downsizing.

The sad part about this from Joan’s point of view is that she was never told about this “problem” issue (remember, it is highly likely that she was never even aware that she was perceived so negatively) and therefore never had the opportunity to see herself through the eyes of others. Should she be overlooked the next time a similar project comes up, she may well wonder why she was not picked to be part of the team – especially since (in her mind) she did so well the last time around. Even if she were to confront the decision-maker, it is likely that the person would simply be ready with an excuse (e.g., “We thought it would be a good stretch assignment for Madeleine!”) as a way for him or her to avoid having to be honest.

Obviously, if she had received proper feedback at the right time, then she at least would have had the opportunity to change her behaviour and perhaps salvage her career. In any event, even if the manager could somehow figure out how to bring the subject up within the context of the positive results, he still usually doesn’t feel confident in doing so for the reasons that were discussed already.

How to use PAF to improve objectives-based approaches

The problem is the same as in the previous approaches. Therefore, the solution is the same. Since there will often be a subjective element to any rating (e.g., “meets”, “exceeds”, “did not meet”, etc.) managers can use PAF in conjunction with the form in any case where there may be room for argument or disagreement. Alternatively, they can use it to bring in elements that do not affect the rating. For example, in the case of Joan above:

"As you already know, I rated the team as “meeting” this objective about creating the corporate web site because it accomplished exactly what it set out to do. In terms of your contribution to that effort, we already determined that the graphics are excellent and truly support the text well. You deserve to be receiving the bonus for your work in helping to achieve this important objective.

I would also like though to give you some feedback concerning how you achieved this objective that I think would help you to do an even better job the next time you work on a team project where you are the graphic designer.  Would you like to hear it?

Followed by PAF feedback ....

360-degree-based Approaches

Because of the anonymity of 360-degree feedback methods, there is a less of a chance that the appraiser will avoid being honest. However, the opposite situation can be just as problematic. The 360-degree feedback process allows for an information dump of positive and negative conclusions, judgments and opinions without any requirement to justify or explain them in an effective way.

The whole process also assumes that the person receiving the feedback will understand it, agree with it and, in the case of negative opinions and judgments, will know what to do to correct the situation. This is rarely the case.

In addition, recipients of 360-degree feedback tend to be extremely nervous about the results and often end up in a state of shock, denial, or anger if they receive negative feedback. The fact that the vendors of such programs often recommend a “professional” third party be present when the feedback is delivered, simply proves how sensitive people are to receiving it. Again, this just reaffirms PAF’s message – that what we say and how we say it is as important as the fact that we say it at all.

Therefore, 360-degree-based approaches do not solve the initial problem either. Namely, to take what the appraiser “knows” about the performance of the person being appraised, and then to provide those opinions in the form of effective feedback.

Using PAF to improve 360–degree feedback systems

To overcome this problem, provide training in The PAF Technique combined with performance support for every internal person who is required to fill in the forms as per the suggestions outlined for ratings and competency-based systems. Again, for best results, tie the training to the actual 360-degree form that the organization is using.

Alternatively, another way to make 360-degree feedback more effective is for the people receiving it to be able to request an explanation of anything that they feel is important, but which they do not fully understand. To preserve anonymity, this could be handled through a third party (usually the person who is coordinating the feedback session) who could trace the source of the feedback through a code on the sheet. He or she could get the explanation from the original appraiser and use The PAF Technique to structure it for feedback purposes.

Obviously, these recommendations will not work with external people such as customers. It is not possible to control the way that these people provide feedback.

Direct managers should not evaluate their employees using anonymous 360-degree feedback approaches because it is inappropriate for direct managers to give feedback anonymously. By virtue of the position they have over their employees, managers have an organizational, moral, and ethical responsibility to talk to them face to face, explain their feedback, and help their employees to figure out how to achieve desired performance.

Forced Ranking Approaches

Forced ranking systems essentially require managers to evaluate employees against each other in accordance with the standard distribution. It means that about 10 per cent of employees must fall into the lowest category and the idea is to replace these employees with new ones.

Regardless of whether the implementation of such a system is perceived as being inherently beneficial or not (and there is plenty of debate about it), the root cause of the problem does not lie with the technical elements of how the process works. Neither does it lie with the managers’ ability to honestly identify the category into which a given employee should be placed.

For example, the easiest thing in the world for most managers to do is to tell you who their best, average,  and worst employees are. Forced rankings therefore simply formalizes and makes explicit what managers have always tended to do privately anyway.

The problem, again, is not with the placing employees on the Bell curve, but in explaining to the ones who fall on the lower end of it exactly why they were placed there.

Using PAF to improve forced-ranking systems

The key to improving this approach is for managers to be able to articulate to employees the reasoning behind why they have been placed in a given rank.

"As you can see, I’ve placed you in the highest (or lowest) ranking. This reflects how I honestly believe you are performing on each of the items that I was required to evaluate. I’d like to go over each of them with you in order to explain why I rated you the way I did and to give us the opportunity to discuss them."

Followed by PAF feedback ....

Key-Performance Indicators/Numerical Approaches

When performance assessments can be measured in a non- contestable way - meaning that it can be compared to a numeric standard (either the employee did reach a given numerical production target, or he or she did not) -  then they can be considered “objective” in the true sense of the word.

Since it would defeat the whole purpose of these methods to try to incorporate any form of subjectivity into such processes, there is no recommendation to incorporate PAF into them.

KPI’s should not be confused with Performance by Objectives

When any form of judgment is involved in determining if an objective was met or not (i.e., there room for argument or disagreement between the manager and employee), then the approach is not truly “objective” and does not fit into this category.

FORMAL EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT

As with formal appraisals, the reason that formalized employee development programs tend to work in theory, but not in practice, boils down to the fact that managers cannot “tell it like it is” and give their perspective on how employees can reach their potential. An explanation of how this problem derails annual development meetings, coaching programs, and selection and promotion processes and how PAF feedback can help improve their effectiveness follows.

Annual Meeting

Most employee development processes require employees to evaluate themselves first.

For example, employees are typically asked to prepare for the development meeting by writing down what they think of their own performance and what their career aspirations are. The manager then looks at what employees have written prior to the meeting in order to compare it to his or her own perceptions. A variation of this approach is that this happens during the meeting itself. In either case, the information provided by the employee is used as the basis of the ensuing discussion.

This problematical for two reasons:

1. While employees know how they think they are doing, they do not know if this self-perception is accurate because they generally have had no feedback that would either confirm or contradict it. What they want is to be able to do is to compare their own perception with those of other people (particularly their managers).

2. Asking employees to evaluate themselves first puts them in a difficult position. When employees share their own thoughts without ever having had any prior feedback, they are at an incredible disadvantage because they are naturally very wary of sticking their necks out and risk looking stupid by not getting it "right". More importantly, they don't want to risk coming across as better or worse than they actually are only to risk being contradicted.

3. Unless the employee has received prior (effective) feedback, self-perceptions are rarely accurate. Therefore, asking employees to talk first is likely to put managers in a difficult position as well. No manager wants to be in the unenviable position of having to disagree with an employee’s self-assessment and then to have to deal with the potentially difficult aftermath.

For example, a manager might know that a certain employee hasn’t a hope of being promoted but will go along with a plan to “develop” the employee in that direction rather than tell the truth as he or she sees it. The employee, however, thinks that if he or she does everything right and follows the plan, eventually he or she will be promoted. Then we wonder why employees become disillusioned and demotivated when they follow the plan and nothing happens!

This does not imply that employees should not have the opportunity to self-evaluate, present, and discuss their own perceptions. It only means that should do so after they have had the opportunity of hearing their managers' viewpoint. After having made this comparison (in a safe and private way and digested the implications, formulated any questions they may have etc.) employees are generally better prepared to discuss their performance in a more accurate and realistic light.

How PAF Feedback can Improve Annual Development Meetings

The first recommendation is to reverse this situation and require that managers provide their perceptions first using PAF Feedback because it enables them to explain and validate their perceptions in an effective and successful way.

They can also use the concepts outlined in the special version of PAF Feedback called the “How am I Doing Discussion?” (sidebar) to help them if items on the formal form do not correspond exactly with their own conclusions and opinions.

For full explanation see Article #4: Holding a “How am I (REALLY) Doing?” Discussion: How PAF can help mangers answer the question at the back of every employee’s mind.

Some people argue that it is not the role of the manager to tell the employee this information – that is it really up to the employee to be the architect of his or her own development.

The argument goes something like this:

The manager is not the font of all knowledge about an employee. Besides, who is to say that his or her impressions are even right? They might be wrong, misguided, or even biased. Anyway, employees have to take responsibility for their own development …

This argument is problematical because, as explained in throughout the articles on this site the information that employees need in order to be able to develop in ways that help them to understand their potential (whether they are the architect of it or receive help in determining it) and achieve it, is precisely the information that is rarely, if ever, provided to them. As Buckingham and Coffman also say in their now iconic management book, Breaking all the Rules:

Great managers excel at holding up the mirror. They excel at giving performance feedback. Great managers think, “I know the person better than he knows himself”.

Coaching

It is not possible to overemphasize the importance that coaching plays in helping employees succeed. It can literally make or break them. Good coaching enables employees to come out of it having been as successful as their potential allows, feeling good about themselves and confident in their ability. Poor or non-existent coaching can leave them feeling disillusioned and demotivated, and perhaps never committed to doing more than the bare minimum.

Organizations therefore cannot afford to leave this success to chance, they have to invest in helping designated coaches, mentors, or managers of new employees overcome the root cause of the problems that they encounter when giving performance-related feedback.

Implications for formal probation periods

From an organizational point of view, the point of formal probation periods is to assess the ability and the “fit” of individuals to do the job for which they were initially hired. Probation periods are important because they provide an opportunity for organizations to correct hiring mistakes relatively easily and quickly. However, once employees become permanent, it becomes much more involved and difficult to remove them.

When it is clear that a new employee will work out, there is generally no major problem. The coaching itself is relatively simple, the necessary forms are filled out and that is the end of it. The difficulty comes when the managers or supervisors feel that the new hire is not going to work out. While they tend to “know” this, they do not know how to defend their position by validating and explaining their conclusions. This is how the root cause of the difficulty with performance-related communication manifests itself in this context.

Consequently, unless the employee is clearly unsuitable, managers tend to withhold the information that would stop the hiring – essentially telling the organization that the employee is okay, even when they are not convinced that it is true. In other words, they approve the hire by default. Living with the future consequences seems to be an easier choice than immediately confronting the situation and terminating the employment.

What further complicates the root cause in this case is that, if managers do decide to terminate, they had better be well prepared to justify their position and be able to explain it – not just to the employee, but to the organization, and perhaps a court as well. This is of particular concern in countries where litigation is rampant. In the U.S., for example, organizations are typically wary of being sued. Even when the charge is without merit, they may deem that going to court is not worth the cost and hassle involved – especially when there is little concrete information to back up the action that was taken.

Implications for formal coaching and mentoring programs

While coaching and mentoring can happen at any time in an employee’s career, it is is most prevalent when employees are new and they are being trained to do the job properly (field coaching).

For some organizations the orientation and coaching of new employees constitutes a very important part of the overall training and development strategy. For example, in many policing organizations, new constables are teamed with a more experienced officer (or supervisor) for a certain period of time – generally six months or so. Such field coaching is more than a probation period. It is designed to help new officers bridge the gap between the theoretical knowledge they received during their time in the academy with the real world of policing. During this period, they “learn the ropes” so that at the end, when they receive their new assignment, they are able to hit the ground running.

Typically, during this period, the organization expects the coach to:

• Teach the new constable what is involved in the job.

• Provide ongoing daily feedback (both positive and corrective) on performance.

• Formally evaluate and to periodically document performance.

As with other formal processes designed to discuss performance, the success of any field-coaching program depends on the ability of the senior officer to fulfill these expectations. Since organizations are well aware of this, they tend to choose coaches for their knowledge, good work ethic, and attitude. For example, they are less likely to say things like, “Forget what you have learned at the academy – the way we really do things around here is...”. However, even when these attributes are combined with good intentions, we know that this is not sufficient to overcome the root cause of the problem that 90 per cent of the coaches will have in effectively communicating performance-related information.

To illustrate, suppose a new constable (Keith) and his field coach (Susan) answer a call about a domestic dispute. Let’s say that, in reviewing what happened in her head afterward, Susan thinks the new officer’s approach was “a bit heavy- handed”.

Obviously, if this behaviour crossed any obvious or pre-defined limits, she would undoubtedly address it. However, in many cases, the situation is generally not so clear-cut. Suppose it was simply a perception that a softer approach to dealing with the people involved would have been more effective. In this case, Susan might let it go if she feels that she can’t really say anything because it was not a clear-cut situation. The other possibility is that she could not express her concerns in a way that would bring about the desired behaviour change while maintaining the integrity of the mentor/ protégé relationship. Naturally, she neither wants nor needs an uncomfortable situation to develop – she has to continue working with Keith on a daily basis.

The effect of the root cause of the communication problem in this situation is that the senior officer either avoids the feedback or fudges the information sufficiently in order to avoid any confrontation or to allow the employee to save face.

You did okay. You’ll get better the more calls we do.

The effect of this lack of honest and effective communication is that the next time Keith handles a similar call he might also come across as being a bit heavy-handed. In the absence of feedback to the contrary, he remains oblivious to this fact that his approach is being perceived as somewhat inappropriate. He assumes that what he is doing is okay. (No news is good news, right?)

The longer this goes unmentioned, the harder it becomes for the senior officer to initiate discussion and the more likely it is that the heavy-handed approach will be reinforced. Moreover, if the “problem” is eventually brought up, such as in the final evaluation, the constable  is bound to ask, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

On the other hand, if it this behaviour is never addressed during the field-coaching period, the organization ends up with an officer who, while not crossing any line, tends to come across as a bit heavy-handed. The problem is, he gets this reputation without ever knowing that it is an issue.

How PAF Feedback can Improve Coaching

Training coaches, mentors, and supervisors of new employees to give PAF feedback can prevent this kind of situation from happening and improve the chance that new employees will get off on the right foot.

Let’s just take a minute to review that last call (followed by PAF Feedback ...)

Selection and Hiring

One of the most difficult aspects of the hiring and promotion process revolves around having to tell someone who has interviewed for a position that he or she did not get the job. Honest feedback after job interviews is notoriously difficult for candidate to get because they were qualified (or they would not have got the interview in the first place) so this cannot be used as a legitimate reason for rejection. In other words, such situations always involve having to explain to “qualified” candidates why they did not measure up in some way (which is almost always boils down to perceptions and conclusions about less tangible things such as personality and “fit” with the boss and culture0.

Since there are no obvious or immediate benefits to the hiring manager or HR person for telling the truth, it is not hard to see why they prefer to avoid explaining to unsuccessful candidates why they didn’t get the job.

Therefore, if candidates receive any feedback at all about how they did in the interview process, it is usually in the form of a letter filled with euphemisms, such as “other candidates were better qualified” and so on. This information is deliberately vague in order to protect the hiring manager or organization from any unwanted reprisals (especially ones that could end up in court). If candidates press for answers the hiring personnel try to “let them down easy” for the same reason. Consequently, candidates are often dismissed with statements like, “You were a bit too tentative in your answers” for example, but with no good explanation of what that actually means.

For internal hires in particular, this avoidance leaves the candidates in a difficult position because they are often at a loss to understand why they were not successful. Sometimes they figure it out. For example, a woman who was going after a position that was traditionally considered a male bastion within the organization said:

"Upon reflection, I don’t think I got the job the first time around because I didn’t talk enough. They probably felt that I was too timid for the job. At the second opportunity I stopped worrying and was more aggressive – I told them what I really thought. It must have had something to do with it because I got the job!"

Implications for formal coaching and mentoring programs

It is when employees don’t manage to figure it out that the problems start. These employees are most likely to end up becoming demotivated and resentful. When employees are passed over, sometimes repeatedly, they cannot understand it. They become disillusioned, perhaps believing that management is biased in some way against them. They may start to hold such perceptions as, “promotion is based only on who you know, rather than on what you know” when, in fact, the reality of the situation is that they are making the same mistake over and over again. Or, they do not have a realistic picture of their current performance and potential simply because their managers have not “held up the mirror”. Fobbing off internal candidates who were not successful can have unintended but far-reaching consequences for the organization when it ends up having to deal with yet another employee who is sliding down the slippery slope from being fully engaged in his or her work to rationally enduring it.

How PAF Feedback Can Help Selection Processes

Most hiring managers are concerned with the people that they want to hire, not the ones they don’t.

While this is of course where the focus should be, if they could also provide, in the right way,  post interview feedback (or reasons why the interview was not granted to a “qualified” employee in the first place) that he employee could understand, agree with, feel helped for for the future, and still leave his or her self-esteem intact, then it can only be positive.

Summary: How PAF Feedback Can Improve Formal Appraisal and Employee Development Processes

To get the best results from adding PAF feedback to formal processes, the organization can either use generic training that allows managers to apply their knowledge and skills to different formal situations or tie the training directly to the actual forms that managers are required to use.

Training in The PAF Technique, within the context of the specific system or process and combined with individualized performance support in the form of personal phone coaching, can go a long way to help managers to complete formal appraisals in do this in an effective, helpful, and legally defensible way.