There are various kinds of appraisals
Strategic goals are rigorously and meaningfully translated into team and individual objectives through two-way communication mechanisms. People are clear of their roles and goals; they experience the personal and commercial benefits in achieving objectives. People feel in on things and want to hit their targets.
A regualar feedback mechanism helps the employee to understand what is the expectation of the company and how is he performing against the expectation.
To name a few are
1) Graphical rating scale- In this method the appraiser has to select the most descriptive rating or evaluative adjective for the employee who is being appraised.
2)Ranking Method, Paired Comparison and Forced Distribution. In this method the employee are ranked against each other. Its basically a comparative method of appraising the employes.Its not so preferred a method because it does not really compare the individual performance instead it compared the differences in performance.
3)Checklist Method - The appraiser has to check /rank each employee on a given list of statements or adjective, At times a hidden formula is used to calculate the appraisal results.
4) Critical Incident Technique - In this method the appraiser has to keep notes of the employees behavior across the appraisal period and then these notes are used to come to an appraisal scores. However this is a very behavior based method.
5)360degree and 180 degree
In 360 degree appraisal - everyone interacting with the employee gives an appraisal rating to him i.e supervisor, subordinate,peers, internal vendors and external vendors.
In 180 only a few of the above mentioned groups appraise the employee.
I hope this helps. If you need any more information please do write back.
Regards,
PK