Abstract:
There is strong anecdotal evidence that suggests few employees and managers find the annual
employee appraisal or performance review to be a positive or comfortable experience.
Indeed, Cray and Mallory (1998) state that this problem can be further complicated by the
employee and manager being from different cultural backgrounds.
The stated aim of employee appraisals, that of reporting performance levels and ways of
improving performance in the future, is often not achieved (Hunter, 1992; Cronk et aI, 1994;
Stoner et al, 1994: Dressler et aI, 1999). These authors also state that the performance
appraisal is often used by managers to support management control and to condition
employee behaviour.
The principles of work performance management have been introduced to middle and senior
managers within the health industry in Australia, which is the subject of this pilot study. The
authors present a normative feedback model as a successor to the 360 degree model. The
model presented combines both the theory of work performance management with the
practicality of self-appraisal and peer-appraisal, while also ensuring that the appraisal
environment is non threatening for all employees, This paper reports the results of a pilot
study of this model in the Anesthetic team of a large tertiary hospital and presents
conclusions and suggestions for further study and refinement of the model.
