Effective corporate initiatives and processes are the bedrock of successful organisations; Developing Practice provides managers with essential frameworks to identify, formulate and implement the best policies and practice in the management and development of people. All employers need to find ways to improve the performance of their people. Yet many of today’s personnel departments are abolishing rigid systems of performance management in favour of strategic frameworks that empower individual managers to communicate with, motivate and develop their staff. One of Birtain’s best-known business writers and the IPD’s Policy Adviser for Employee Resourcing draw on detailed data from over 550 organisations - including the latest innovations adopted by leading-edge companies ranging from BP Exploration to the Corporation of London, and from AA Insurance to Zeneca - to illuminate how approaches to appraisal have evolved and to identify current best practice in performance management. They explore its history, philosophy and separate elements, the criticisms it has attracted and its impact (if any) on quantiflable business results.