Ideally, how often should appraisals take place? What should be the minimum time interval in between appraisals? We are starting a company and need all the info we can get. Thanks.

How frequent formal appraisals should take place really just depends on the nature of your company and the nature of your jobs. And it depends on your objectives, too, as an organisation. For instance, if you are a high technology company, the changes and developments happen rather quickly, so appraisals should be carried out in a more frequent manner. Those who work in companies of a less changing nature, like a museum, would not need appraisals as frequent as that.

There are also instances when workers of a certain position would need more appraisals than their colleagues. It could be that they are new employees, or older employees but who have just assumed a particular role or position, or old employees who haven't scored well during the last appraisal.

Are managers normally exempted? Because I think that seems to be the case.

Ideally, every one should be subject to an appraisal, including managers.

I do agree. We found that a once a year appraisal is not really feasible for us, so we opted for a quarterly review. And performance has been up since!

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This particular handholding became apparent for our organisation when we laid off people. It seems that we needed to be more in touch with people in new roles. Another set of people who need more frequent appraisals would be those who were recently promoted or transferred.

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Off to the Boondocks I go!

I agree. Everybody in the organisation needs to be appraised for them to get better and not dilly dally in their positions. Management included!

Thanks for these guys, I've always thought that once a year was enough!