ABSTRACT
The main objectives of appraisal could be classified under three main headings: performance review, development review and career guidance. The appraisal represents an organisational attempt to ride roughshod over what is frequently a tenuous and precarious relationship. This relationship is a delicate, intangible, constantly changing one. The person may have problems, e.g. of relationships with his colleagues or superiors, which he has not mentioned during the year and which he would like to bring up at an appraisal interview. Problems are created by senior staff who are hostile to the scheme, and who do not take the trouble to understand its purpose or co-operate in implementing it. The appraisal may be a threat to satisfactory development of the relationship. When the desirability of an appraisal scheme has been accepted in principle, there are many practical problems in implementing it.
