By Joel T. Patz

Nobody looks forward to employee reviews, no matter which side of the desk they're on. But the Best Manager Edition of Employee Appraiser 3.0 takes the drudgery out of collecting employee performance information and writing it up. This program helps managers provide both positive reinforcement and constructive criticism to their employees.

Highly flexible, Appraiser's new user interface lets you customize employee data records, defining 115 field entries from name, position, health care number and reporting path to citizenship status, referral source and annual sales bonus. The program's OLE 2.0 support makes it easy to insert spreadsheets, graphics and even multimedia files into the evaluation. The Employee Folder view lets you sort, annotate and manage each document attached to an employee file.

You can either import your company's form or use one of the program's 12 included appraisal templates. Each template, from Sales Representative to Self-Appraisal, comes with predefined, customizable performance topics. Appraiser works inside a word processor, and accepts Word, WordPerfect and Ami Pro files. Employee Appraiser supports VIM and MAPI e-mail protocols, so you can mail evaluations from within the program.

Employee Appraiser's greatest strength lies in the ease with which you create an evaluation. Select from a group of topics, then rate behaviors within the category (Improve, Meets or Exceeds). The program offers sample text for each behavior, lets you fine-tune the tone of your response with a mouse click and then copies the text into the actual review. You can elect to use the second or third person (you are ..., or he/she is ...) in your appraisal. You can even add borders and shading to enhance and highlight specific information.

The Coaching Advisor provides substantive advice on preparing and conducting an actual evaluation interview from the completed appraisal. You'll also find tips for motivating employees and sample memos to recognize good behavior and encourage employees to improve in weak areas.

If you're looking for a program to benefit both managers and employees, Employee Appraiser 3.0 makes employee review almost a pleasure.

--Info File--
Employee Appraiser 3.0-Best Manager Edition
Price: $249
Pros: Easy to use; content-rich
Cons: None
Platforms: Windows 95, 3.1x
Disk Space: 10MB (14MB recommended)
RAM: 8MB (16MB recommended)
Austin-Hayne Corp.
800-809-9920, 415-655-3800
WinMag Box Score: 3.5