Page 66 - Communication in Organizations Basic Skills and Conversation Models

The performance evaluation interview 55

• more emphasis on the tasks than on the person
• more emphasis on the future than on the past.

Table 7.1 Differences between performance
evaluation interview and appraisal interview

Performance evaluation interview Appraisal interview
Work behaviour and work relationships are the focal In this interview the consequences of a
points. How did it go in the past period? What went prior appraisal interview are the focal
right, what went less right? In the interview one point. The employee is confronted with a
searches for the causes of problems and ways of solving judgement, Sometimes there are direct
them. There are explicitly no consequences for wages consequences for promotion and wage
or promotion involved in this interview. adaptations,
Manager and employee are talking. Manager is primarily doing the talking.
Manager and employee make agreements together. The manager takes the decisions,

These principles also led to a plea for the implementation of different types of interviews.
A distinction was made between the performance evaluation interview on the one hand
and the appraisal interview on the other. Some important differences are listed in Table
7.1.
The performance evaluation interview should be part of a larger evaluation system
within personnel policy. When a general personnel policy values the involvement of
employees with issues that concern them and the improvement of cooperation between
managers and employees, the performance evaluation interview is an important tool.
However, having performance evaluation interviews is of little use unless these
interviews are part of an integral personnel policy. To illustrate: an employee says in a
performance evaluation interview that he would like to have more responsibilities and the
manager also believes this would be a positive development. This wish then has to be
transformed into concrete action, for example, by following a course (training policy) or
the attaining of a higher position (promotion policy).

Goal and conditions

The general goal of the performance evaluation interview is to bring the interests of the
organization and the employee in line with each other. In specific terms this interview is
directed at the improvement of both the motivation and work results of the employee, as
well as the cooperation between employee and manager and between employee and other
colleagues. It is an often reoccurring interview in which the work itself, the work
atmosphere, the work performance and the work circumstances are discussed and
decisions are made regarding observed problems. Finally, this interview should lead to
agreements in order to resolve problems or to establish certain aspects of improvement.
In order to be able to reach these goals certain conditions should be fulfilled. These
conditions have regard to the implementation of such a system of performance evaluation
interviews in an organization. First, both the employees and managers need to be