On the other hand
I was general manager of small company, about 30 people.

I used to get regular complaints that the company had no coherent policy of appraising, and 'communication' with staff - despite the fact we all worked in an open plan office together.

So one day, heeding their requests I knocked up a form, cribbed from the Internet, with various 'are you happy / are you sad' questions, and a space for 'any other comments', etc. I also arranged 2 days where each of the staff could arrange a meetiing with me and another manager, to discuss anything at all they wanted to discuss.

Good. Of the 30 odd forms we gave out, 5 were returned. Of these, 2 people requested a meeting. One of them just wanted to say he liked working there. The other asked if we could get a new coffee machine for the kitchen.
(username failed moderation, Mon 27 Feb 2012, 11:12, 1 reply)

Haha, oh dear :D
I'm not against appraisals as such, I think they're a good way of making sure everything/everyone is okay. I just can't see what's wrong with you telling your manager how you feel and your manager telling you how you're doing. All this "proving that you can do your job" is just nonsense - I have to present things like minutes of meetings to show that I attended meetings and took part, when my manager was chairing the meeting. It's total bullshit O_o

...aaaand relax :)
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Mon 27 Feb 2012, 11:52, closed)

I can understand it in a 15,000 employee mega corp,
but 30 of us, in one office . . .

If someone had had any kind of problem, I'd have known.

I think probably a few of them had a megacorp background, and not getting the form once a year (regardless of whether they filled it in) made them think we weren't doing it properly.

But fair's fair - we did buy a new coffee machine, so it was all worth the effort.
(username failed moderation, Mon 27 Feb 2012, 12:37, closed)

Wow - a company that actually cares about its employees!
O_o
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Mon 27 Feb 2012, 14:19, closed)