Performance appraisal may well be the most despised management process around, and often for very good reasons.  Most performance appraisal forms are only marginally relevant to an employee’s job, and the results of the process itself yield very little – perhaps a token difference in a raise for a “higher performer” over a “lower performer;” but even these distinctions are often criticized by employees because of assumptions concerning how “tough” one supervisor is over another.  Simply put, the link between actual performance and actual executive or employee compensation is frequently tenuous at best.