"Our organization uses a standard performance appraisal form for all lobs. One question asks about the employee's ability 'to work with others.' One of the employees I supervise works at night as a security guard—he doesn't interact with anyone except potential intruders. Should I just leave that question blank?"

This problem results from organizations having a "one size fits all" performance appraisal form. The critical issue here is to find out the consequences of skipping an item. If the performance appraisal is primarily used to provide developmental feedback on each performance dimension, skipping one dimension is not a problem. But if personnel decisions (e.g., pay raises, promotion potential)

are based on an overall score (computed by adding or averaging across items), the employee may be penalized if you fail to answer a question. If that's the case, be careful to correct the employee's total score so that it accurately reflects only those items that pertain to the employee's job requirements.