• Using the Korea Labor Institute's Workplace Panel Survey data, we examined the current status of fairness in performance management from three aspects (procedural fairness, relational fairness, and outcome fairness).

• In terms of procedural fairness, we look at the use of Management by Objectives (MBO), who is involved in the performance appraisal process, and the proportion of qualitative elements in the individual performance appraisal elements.

- The proportion of companies using Management by Objectives (MBO) method seems to be steadily increasing.

- The most common source of performance information in performance appraisal seems to be the supervisor. It was confirmed that the number of organizations using information from self, subordinates, colleagues and customers in performance appraisal has increased compared to the past.

- The proportion of qualitative evaluation items among individual performance evaluation items appears to be over 40%.

• In terms of relational fairness, we examine the current status of the institutionalization of evaluation feedback and the disclosure method of personnel evaluation results.

- The proportion of companies that say that the regular feedback system works properly is about 31.6% in 2019.

- In general, smaller companies have a lower level of institutionalization and practical operation of regular feedback, while the rate of not disclosing personnel evaluation results at all or publicly announcing them to all employees seems to be high.

• In terms of fairness of results, we look at how objections to personnel evaluation results are handled and whether objections are filed.

- In the case of objection handling methods, the proportion of companies that fully explained the results to the relevant employees through the person in charge was 64.0% in 2019.

- The proportion of companies that answered that there was no special handling plan because the objection system was ineffective was 3.8% in 2015, 5.8% in 2017, and 6.7% in 2019. It was found that the rate of failure of the appeals system was relatively higher in non-unionized companies than in unionized companies.

- The rate of objections to evaluation results was 4.1% in 2015, 7.0% in 2017, and 9.3% in 2019.

• Measures to improve the fairness of the performance management system are as follows.

- In the evaluation process, it is necessary to use evaluation information from more diverse sources than just the immediate supervisor.

- Because of the difficulty in making intuitive judgments, the proportion of qualitative items that may be controversial needs to be reviewed.

- While the appeal process is fair and transparent, efforts must continue to fully explain the results of personnel evaluations to the employees concerned. It is necessary to provide timely feedback on performance appraisals and to create an atmosphere in which the appraisee is free to raise objections to the appraisal.

- Above all, it is necessary to clearly recognize that the performance management system itself is not perfect, and that making decisions based on an imperfect system can cause various fairness problems within the organization.