Typically supervisors invite an employee in, ask them to sit down, and then launch into a monologue, telling the employee all their faults, and what they have to do about them. If they aren’t careful the interview will be over before the employee has had an opportunity to say more than, “Hello.”

The basic organization of the performance appraisal interview is generally the same as for all types of interviews. They consist of three phases: the opening, the discussion, and the closing.