Chapter 50 Introduction to Employee Performance Management
Performance management entails the processes and systems designed to develop, management, and evaluate employees’ performance levels and contributions to the organization. Classically, performance appraisal (i.e., performance evaluation) often comes to mind for most people when they think of employee performance. Although performance appraisal is often useful for understanding and tracking employee performance, it represents just one component of a larger performance-management system. The term “performance management” carries a connotation of ongoing assessment and feedback, whereas “performance appraisal” is often used to describe a discrete, one-time performance-evaluation event. Just as reliability and validity are quality indicators when evaluating selection tools, for example, they are also important estimate within the context of performance management systems, particularly with respect to the measurement and/or evaluation components of the system.