Appraisal policy

Our appraisal policy will assist you in setting out your approach to appraising your staff on an annual basis. This should be a formal evaluation when a review of an employee’s past performance takes place and an action plan is agreed for the future. You can decide when you want the process to take place to suit business needs.

An annual approach

Our Appraisal Policy has been designed to complement our Appraisal Procedure and Form and to help you set out your approach to appraising employees. It’s good performance management practice to appraise your staff on a regular basis and, in any event, no less than once a year. As such, our policy assumes that you’ll conduct appraisals at least once every year and that they’ll be carried out by the employee’s line manager. We’ve left it broad on the timing, stating it can vary depending on the employee’s job or the department where they work and is at your discretion, but if you do have a set appraisal month, you can easily state this.

Objectives

Our policy goes on to set out the objectives of the appraisal meeting, which are generally to:

• discuss and review the employee’s previous year’s performance and achievements
• identify any shortcomings in achieving performance objectives and reasons why
• agree any changes required to performance objectives
• consider future training and career development needs
• discuss opportunities for advancement or alternative work. 

The overall aim is to come out with an agreed action plan so we’ve confirmed that. We’ve also made it clear that the employee needs to play their part in the process by considering in advance what points they wish to discuss and then participating in the meeting itself by an open exchange of views. We’ve cross-referred to our Self-Appraisal Form which might help the employee to prepare.

Post-meeting action

After the meeting, our policy provides for an appraisal form to be completed by the line manager as a record of the discussions, which will then go to the employee for signature and for them to add their own comments. Our policy then states that the form will be held on the employee's personnel file - but do bear in mind that it should still be in continual use as a working reference document, as employee appraisal should be an ongoing process.

Under the terms of our policy, there will be an overall review of the fairness of the appraisal process conducted, preferably by a senior manager. The aim here is to ensure that line managers are all being consistent and fair.