Coming soon · Book Profile
The Performance Appraisal Tool Kit
A practical guide showing HR leaders and executives how to redesign the performance appraisal template, content, and process to drive individual and enterprise-wide performance rather than merely justify merit increases.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
Performance reviews are universally dreaded, dismissed as a bureaucratic paper chase used only to justify a 3 percent raise. This book argues that the problem isn't the review itself but the outdated, generic, one-size-fits-all form and the flawed assumptions behind it. Falcone and Tan reframe performance appraisal as a living, breathing, customizable process—a strategic scorecard for an organization's most critical asset, its human capital. Through six essential steps, they show you how to set a strategic vision, design a template matched to your company's stage of growth, craft content descriptors that raise expectations, gain employee buy-in, roll up scores into an enterprise dashboard, and reinvent the program year after year. Along the way they demystify compensation mechanics (compa-ratios, salary matrices, pay-for-performance), teach calibration to fight grade inflation, and tie individual scores through 9-box succession models all the way up to CEO-level strategy. The result is a 'consultant in a box' that turns a tired annual ritual into a competitive advantage and a career-making leadership tool.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- An HR practitioner, executive, or line manager who wants to build a high-performance culture and become an effective steward of their organization's human capital.
- The problem
- Their performance appraisal system is outdated, generic, and used only to justify merit increases, producing no strategic value. They feel frustrated, embarrassed, and cynical about a process everyone dreads and no one takes seriously.
- The plan
- Set your strategic vision for performance management and measurement.
- Design the appraisal form/template to match your organization's current challenges and goals.
- Craft winning content descriptors that raise expectations for both organization and individual.
- Communicate the new vision and gain buy-in from employees.
- Roll up a strategic enterprise dashboard to executive leadership reflecting human capital performance.
- The payoff
- A performance-driven culture where employees motivate themselves and feel engaged. · Reduced turnover of top talent, increased internal promotions, and lower workers' comp and FMLA claims. · A strategic human-capital dashboard that senior leaders use to steer the enterprise.
See our guide
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Additional reading
- Design, Implementation and Evaluation of Assessment and Development Centres; Best practice guidelines · British Psychological Society (BPS)
Cited by the author as an authoritative source for best practice, covering key issues like fairness, design, and evaluation that are central to the book's guidance.
- Assessment Centres (3rd edn) · C Woodruffe
Recommended for readers seeking a broader overview and history of the assessment centre method.
- The big five personality dimensions and job-performance; a meta-analysis · Barrick, M R and Mount, K M
Provides the empirical support for the book's caution against over-relying on personality tests in selection, a key topic in Chapter 5.
- A theory of the validity of predictors in selection · M Smith
Offers a theoretical framework for understanding why different selection tools have varying levels of effectiveness, underpinning the book's core argument.
- Competence at Work · Spencer, L M and Spencer, S M
A foundational text on the concept of competence, relevant to Chapter 2 on developing a competence framework.
- Development and Assessment Centres · Charles Woodruffe
Cited as a key text for readers wanting a more recent and in-depth exposition of assessment centre work, a core topic of the book.
- Performance Management: The new realities · Michael Armstrong and Angela Baron
The book uses Armstrong and Baron's definition of performance management as its foundation, making their work a primary source for understanding this core concept.
- The Competent Manager: A model for effective performance · R. F. Boyatzis
The author attributes the current usage and definition of 'competency' to Boyatzis, making this a foundational text for a central theme of the book.
- Appraisal and Feedback: Making performance review work · Clive Fletcher
Fletcher is cited as an authority on appraisals, a key one-to-one interaction within performance management, providing deeper insight into this specific practice.
- The Easy Guide to Repertory Grids · D. Jankowicz
The book presents the repertory grid as a powerful technique for developing interview models; this book is recommended as a highly accessible introduction to the method.