Performance Appraisal in the EU Member States and the European Commission

This comparative study on the individual performance appraisal systems in the EU member states, the European Commission and associated countries was conducted under the Slovak EU Presidency in 2016 and comes 10 years after the review of the performance appraisal under the German EU Presidency in 2007. Since then, classic performance appraisals were reviewed very critically, by both academics and practitioners, asking for considering the contextual factors in the set up of the overall performance appraisal systems. Some experts argue that rather than throwing out the entire performance appraisal systems and process, we should try to improve it. And many of the EU member countries did exactly that. Thus, in the past decades the performance appraisal research has examined the effects of the social context within which the performance appraisal operates, motivational basis of the civil servants, work approaches of millennials, perceptions of fairness and most importantly the various uses of information from the performance appraisal. This has widespread implications for practical application. And since performance appraisals play an important role in individual careers of civil servants and public organisations, it is important to understand the process and design of the instrument in individual EU member states and the European Commission vis-a-vis the latest developments in performance appraisal research.