Overview:
The one and only purpose of a performance appraisal is to "IMPROVE FUTURE PERFORMANCE."
The only competitive advantage any organization has is its employees. So while your competitors are either doing away with giving meaningful feedback to their employees or using it to recount history, It is a perfect time for you to energize your employees with meaningful work and gain their commitment to the job and to you, their supervisor.
Performance Management is an ongoing process. Instead of trying to recapture 52 weeks of employee performance in one sitting like most organizations do, a performance review should be just that - A REVIEW of the performance with an emphasis on what improvements for the upcoming review year.