If you’ve ever had a performance appraisal where the person conducting it really cared about the process, you know first hand the motivational impact. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. Appraisals are generally poorly researched and written, leaving the employee feeling unappreciated and demotivated. Given the business and human resource management implications, the ability to provide effective feedback—recognition and developmental—is an essential management competence and a critical HR and organizational priority.

Your Task

The firm’s Employee Engagement principal was particularly impressed with your Onboarding presentation and has requested your assignment to a second project with significant engagement implications: reimagining the Performance Appraisal process. Specifically, the principal has asked you to review the appraisal best practices and techniques discussed in Module 9 and conduct additional research as necessary to develop a 2–3 page outline for a performance appraisal training program that incorporates that learning and addresses issues—i.e., cognitive bias.

Your outline should reflect an understanding of Kim Scott’s Radical Candor, Lenny Rachitsky’s Performance Management System, and the agile methodology Peter Cappelli and Anna Tavis discuss in The Harvard Business Review article “The Performance Management Revolution (Links to an external site.).” Since you will be synthesizing existing material, be sure to give credit where credit is due and cite sources appropriately.

Additional Information: For a point of reference, see SHRM’s Train Managers, Maximize Appraisals (Links to an external site.) article.