Dr. Lee Kang Yam
Chief Learning Curator | Flame Centre

In my performance management training, I often asked participants what comes to their mind when they think of ‘Performance Management’ and frequently, the majority of the answers seemed to be ‘appraisal’, ‘grade’ or ‘assessment’ just like to word cloud image above.
Most people equate performance appraisal to performance management. Performance appraisal is part of the performance management process - it is an important part where supervisors share what they think of the staff performance. Still, it is not the same as performance management.
Performance management consists of the following actions and conversations:
Conversations on work goals and behavioural expectations
Regular check-ins to discuss work challenges and progress
Offer just-in-time feedback to improve performance
Develop staff through coaching conversations and other learning interventions
Conduct performance review conversations
Help staff overcome performance barriers and motivate them
Career and development conversations and plans to grow staff capabilities
Effective performance management encompasses key practices such as:
Avoiding surprises
Regular check-in conversations
Coaching
Developing staff
If all these practices are done well, an appraisal is just a summary or review of the conversations conducted in the work year.