These days it is likely that whatever kind of work you do, appraisals will be used as a method of measuring and controlling current and future performance for employees. All levels of workers have them from shop staff working on the shop floor to office managers. They are meant to allow people to review their performance and make improvements, motivate individuals and set objectives. How can you go about setting objectives that are practical and meaningful and benefit the company as well as the employee?

The first step is to look at the purpose of the objective. Objectives are not tasks, they are goals. An objective cannot be something like 'clean the fridge' or 'finish to do list.' Anything that is already being completed as part of the job role of the employee should not be included. They should also be measurable. This means that there should be clear point when the objective can be considered complete or if not, a set of achievements that can be measured to show that the employee has achieved something towards the objective completion.

An example of a measurable objective would be something the employee could learn. Say for example an employee works on a support desk on a particular product. It may be they know the product inside out and are becoming bored since supporting the product no longer holds any challenge for them. A practical, measurable objective would be to learn a second product that they could then go on to support. This would benefit the employee since they would be motivated by learning new skills and having a challenging role in the company. It would also benefit the company since the employee could take on more support work in a range of areas without having to employ a second person.

In this example the objective could be deemed complete once they have completed the training on the new product, supported it for two months under supervision successfully and is able to support the product competently. There may be other ways to measure an objective requiring new skill sets such as the completion of a recognised qualification or a set amount of experience based around different aspects of the objective.

Some objectives will be less easy to measure since they may be on-going. When this is the case then look to see if the objective can be broken down into separate goal sets and use the goals as measures. An example would be if an employee is asked to learn a foreign language in order to take on relational work with another country. This would be difficult to measure since language is something learned over a long period of time and is unlikely ever to be fully complete. When this happens the objective must be broken down into goals. There are language exams and courses and each time one of them is completed this can be seen as completion of a goal. There will be other more general areas such as putting time aside weekly to practice conversational language with a foreign colleague.

It is extremely important to set realistic timescales for the objectives. In the above example, you cannot expect someone to learn this in a month. Each goal must have a realistic timescale based around the workload and the private life of the employee. Someone with a family may have less time to spend outside of working hours on the project than someone who is single with no commitments and this must be taken into account. Objectives should be able to be completed during working hours and this will impact on the amount of time an employee is working on regular things. If you expect someone to complete an objective then you must give them the support and time to do it. Do not expect them to learn the language solely in their own time. Do not expect them to pay for the coursework and examinations. Objectives set are part of an employee's work and should be treated as such.

It is important to set objectives that the employee would enjoy and be enthusiastic about. They can be used as a way of motivating staff and should be mutually agreed upon. In the support desk example, it would be pointless to ask the employee to learn a product for which they hold no enthusiasm whatsoever. The objective is unlikely to be achieved and this would lead to feelings of inadequacy and may even mean your employee would resign. Objectives are not a way for management to alter the job description of the employee without their consent, but add to their skillset in a way that is beneficial and enjoyable for both company and worker.