Management Versus Appraisal

How do we manage performance within the organization? The most common part of the process, and the one with which we are most familiar, is the performance appraisal, or evaluation. However, the performance appraisal process is not the only thing that’s done in performance management.
Performance management is the process of identifying, measuring, managing, and developing the performance of the human resources in an organization. Basically we are trying to figure out how well employees perform and then ultimately improve that performance level. When used correctly, performance management is a systematic analysis and measurement of worker performance (and communication of that assessment to the individual) that we use to improve performance over time.
Performance appraisal, on the other hand, is the ongoing process of evaluating employee performance. Employees need regular feedback on their performance, so we should give them routine and candid assessments. New tools that we will discuss shortly are allowing us to do this much more efficiently.
Performance appraisals are reviews of employee performance over time, so appraisal is just one piece of performance management. If performance appraisals are not completed, the organization doesn’t have valid and reliable information about its human resources; and therefore it has no ability to make good decisions about things such as training, promotions, and pay raises.