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. Notice that it is an ongoing process. 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.