ABSTRACT
Throughout the preceding 12 chapters, I have discussed numerous changes – in social and economic circumstances, government policies and in management thinking – in terms of their impact on organisations and their consequences for performance appraisal. Today, many organisations are structured very differently from the way they would have been ten to fifteen years ago, or in some cases even two years ago. The implication of this is that performance appraisal cannot stay the same and still claim to be relevant. The traditional model of a centrally devised and run appraisal system, with an emphasis on assessment and overall ratings of performance, applied to all staff in the same manner, is no longer appropriate to a high proportion of advanced companies, and is likely to be decreasingly suitable for many more in the next few years. The fact that it is no longer clear in many organisations as to who is the most appropriate person to be the appraiser for an individual is enough in itself to indicate how things have changed.
