Developing employee performance (3): Feedback and appraisals

Authors: Colin Lamb, Susan Earle and Susan McRoberts

XpertHR editor: Bar Huberman

Overview

In this guide to performance development, we explore how to establish a feedback culture and an appraisal system that employees will engage with and that make a clear contribution to improving performance. This is the third guide in our series on developing employee performance:

• In Developing employee performance (1): Understanding performance and its importance to organisational success we look at why strengthening employees' performance is a key factor in organisational success.
• In Developing employee performance (2): Job descriptions and objectives we examine the use of job descriptions, the importance of updating them with the changing needs of the business and establishing clear objectives to ensure people are set up for success.
• In Developing employee performance (4): Discovering performance gaps and providing development opportunities we look at how to identify and bridge gaps in performance to ensure that your people can perform at their best.
• In Developing employee performance (5): Purpose, belonging and psychological safety (coming soon) we discuss the importance of tying employees' work to organisation-wide objectives, and the impact of psychological safety on performance.

Summary

• Organisations with a regular feedback culture report better engagement levels and stronger performance than those that do not have an established feedback culture. (See Why is it so important to create a feedback culture?)
• To be effective, feedback needs to strike the right balance. (See What is good feedback?)
• An effective appraisal (or performance review) process can play a big role in developing employees' performance. There is no one size fits all, but many factors can help to make sure it is effective and that people engage with it. (See Appraisals)