All employers need to find ways to boost the performance of their people. Yet where personnel departments once established rigid formal systems, many today merely provide skills and frameworks to enable individual managers to communicate with, motivate and develop their staff.

The authors draw on detailed data from over 550 organisations - including the latest innovations adopted by leading-edge companies ranging from BP Exploration, Cummins Engines and the Corporation of London to Severn Trent Water and Zeneca - to illuminate how approaches to appraisal have evolved and to identify current best practice in performance management. They explore its history, philosophy and separate elements, the criticisms it has attracted and its impact (if any) on quantifiable business results.