Performance evaluation: building blocks for credentialing and career advancement.

With time and creativity, a performance evaluation can help nurse managers maintain safe and competent care delivery, meet organizational goals, assist nurses to develop professionally and even encourage ideas for future research. Some of the common problems encountered--time, paperwork and incongruent judgments--may arise between the evaluator and the evaluatee. This article discusses some of these very issues and offers some suggestions for how to handle, if not avoid, these difficulties.