In general, having more and better knowledge of the performance management system leads to greater employee acceptance and satisfaction. Organizations often design a communication plan to ensure that information regarding the performance management system is disseminated widely in the organization. Even if a communication plan answers most of the important questions, people have cognitive biases that can still impact acceptance.

The inclusion of an appeals process is important in gaining employee acceptance for the performance management system. This allows employees to understand that if there is a disagreement regarding performance ratings or any resulting decisions, they can be resolved in an amicable and nonretaliatory way. In addition, the inclusion of an appeals process increases the system’s fairness.

Many performance management systems can be plagued with rating errors. In fact, rating errors are usually the reason why so many performance management systems are usually criticized. Accordingly, the goal of rater error training (RET) is to make raters aware of what rating errors they are likely to make and to help them develop strategies to minimize those errors. In other words, the goal of RET is to increase rating accuracy by making raters aware of the unintentional errors they are likely to make.

RET exposes raters to the different errors and their causes; however, being aware of unintentional errors does not mean that raters will no longer make these errors. Awareness is certainly a good first step, but we need to go further if we want to minimize unintentional errors. Frame of reference (FOR) training helps improve rater accuracy by thoroughly familiarizing raters with the various performance dimensions to be assessed.

Pilot tests provide crucial information to be used in improving the system before it is actually put in place. Pilot testing the system can provide huge savings and identify potential problems before they become irreversible and the credibility of the system is ruined permanently. Once the performance management system has been implemented organization-wide, it is important to use clear measurements to monitor and evaluate the system.