You should have a minimum of two meetings. You’ll hold one at the beginning of the year—the performance planning meeting—where you will talk about the important results to be achieved over the next twelve months. In this meeting you and your subordinate will review the job description, the organization’s mission and vision and values statements, your department’s goals, and the most important items on the performance appraisal form.
The second mandatory meeting will be at the end of the year, after you have written the appraisal and had it approved by your boss. This is the performance review meeting. You and the individual will discuss the performance appraisal, talk about the individual’s achievements over the past twelve months, review his development needs, and then plan for the next twelve months.
Besides these two mandatory meetings, however, good managers meet with their people to talk about performance on a routine and regular basis. They also conduct a formal midterm review halfway through the year.