The performance appraisal process is something that's become very important in the 21st century business environment. The days of ruining an unproductive business is pretty much over and unless you start focusing on every single one of your employees, your productivity and overall performance might be in jeopardy. This is where performance appraisals act as a tool to help you access each individual employee in relation to the business and the overall business goals.

If you are involved in performance reviews, then there are 3 very important aspects you need to address.

1. Attitude

Staff often feel like appraisals and performance reviews is a "which hunt" designed to pick at their weaknesses and their lack of performance. You need to change this mindset very quickly and you can start by explaining the real purpose of the appraisals to your staff. You need to focus on the fact that its a 2 way process and that the real purpose of the appraisal is to help that staff member do their job better. this changes the whole attitude and end up as a constructive process aimed at improving things for both parties.

2. Complaints

When your staff has grievances it can be like a poison that kills the entire company. Whenever anyone has any serious grievances, you need to listen. More than anything, people want to feel like someone is listening to them and they want to feel like their employer cares about them. A performance review is often a good opportunity to listen to these grievances. The only caveat is that you need to keep complaints in check and keep the focus on business related complaints instead of personal complaints.

3. Money

Lets face it, when people feel like they are rewarded for their work, they rarely have any complaints. When people feel short changed and that they are doing more than what they are getting paid for, they will usually be unhappy. A performance review is a great place to talk salary and potential pay rises. Its important that you do a very thorough evaluation of that person's performance and always try and give pay rises where its deserved.