8: Performance Appraisal & Evaluation

Performance Management

the process directed to ensure that organizational processes will help maximize the employees productivity by closely measuring their progress.

Also called annual review, employee appraisal, performance review or evaluation

Other terms for Performance Appraisal

Performance Appraisal

aims to evaluate an employee’s skill, achievement, growth and/or weakness.

PM

PM or PM - Which is a broader and continuous process compared to the other which is a specific event or activity conducted within a process in a specific period of conduct?

Human Resource Planning

PA helps in designing an intervention that will provide the complete profile of the company’s HR strengths and weakness which will help in making strategic moves towards its betterment or maintenance.

Training & Development

PA helps in pointing out the needs of an employee specifically those areas of expertise that needs further training.

Career Planning & Development

PA data from each employee gives them enough basis to set career goals for them and identify the specific and suitable means they could do to achieve them.

Compensation Programs

PA within companies enforces the thought “The behaviors you reward are the behaviors you get.” to each employee.

Internal Employee Relations

PA acts as a binding law within company for it helps determine crucial decisions (e.g. Promotion, Demotion, Termination, Layoff, Transfer, etc.) to make if the internal employee relations got involved.

Assessment of Employee Potential

This helps companies in assessing what are the possible potentials an employee has once they’ve started his/her performance appraisal.

Traits

Represent an individual’s predisposition to think, feel, and behave, and many traits are usually thought of as being biologically created.

Professional traits or qualities

natural or learned abilities that an employee may require to perform well in a role and fit a company’s culture

Behaviors

Are typically viewed as resulting from a variety of sources including traits and situational context.

Workplace behavior

a physical, social, or intellectual habit that an employee or colleague may have

Competencies

Refer to an individual’s capability to orchestrate and apply combinations of knowledge, skills, and abilities consistently over time to perform work successfully in the required work situations.

Goal Achievement

This aspect of employee appraisal should be the most positive element in the entire process and help the employee focus on behavior that will produce positive results for all concerned.

Improvement Potential

Firms should also emphasize the future, including the behaviors and outcomes needed to develop the employee, and in the process, achieve the firm’s goals.

Immediate Supervisor

has traditionally been the most logical choice for evaluating performance, and this continues to be the case.

Subordinates

Some firms conclude that the evaluation of managers by them is both feasible and needed.

Subordinates

an excellent position to view their superiors’ managerial effectiveness.

Peers and Team Members

A major strength of using them to appraise performance is that they work closely with the evaluated employee and probably have an undistorted perspective on typical performance.

Self Appraisal

provides employees with a means of keeping the supervisor informed about everything they have done during the appraisal period.

Customer Appraisal

Customer behavior determines a firm’s degree of success.

Customer Appraisal

Organizations use this approach because it demonstrates a commitment to the customer, holds employees accountable, and fosters change

360 Degree Feedback

People all around the employee whose performance is being judged may provide input.

Traits Systems

PA methods that are highly subjective because they are based on the assumption that every supervisor’s perception of a given trait is the same.

Traits Systems

Systems rate individuals on subjective personality factors rather than on objective job performance data.

Comparison Systems

Evaluates a given employee’s performance against that of other employees.

forced distribution method PA

assigns employees to groups that represent the entire range of performance

stacked ranking system

other term for forced distribution method PA

Behavioral Systems

Rate employees on the extent to which they display successful job performance behaviors.

Critical Incident Technique (CIT)
Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)
Behavioral Observation Scale (BOS)

3 main types of Behavioral Systems

Critical Incident Technique (CIT)

Requires job incumbents and their supervisors to identify performance incidents that distinguish successful performances from unsuccessful ones.

Behavioral Observation Scale (BOS)

Displays illustrations of positive incidents (or behaviors) of job performance for various job dimensions.

Results Based Systems

Focus on measurable outcomes such as an individual’s or team’s sales, customer service ratings, productivity, reduced incidence of workplace injuries, and so forth.

Management by Objectives (MBO)

Supervisors and employees determine objectives for employees to meet during the rating period and employees appraise how well they have achieved their objectives.

Management by Objectives (MBO)

Could possible the most effective PA technique

Work Standards Method

A PA method that compares each employee’s performance to a predetermined standard or expected level of output.

Piecework Plans

Typically found in manufacturing settings, reward employees based on their individual hourly production against an objective output standard and are determined by the pace at which manufacturing equipment operates.

Piecework Plans

Work standards method are often coupled with this particular pay plan

Bias Error

Occurs when a rater judges an employee based on personal factors instead of real performance.

First-impression effect

Initial judgment affects later ratings.

Halo/Horn effect

One good or bad trait affects all areas.

Similar-to-me effect

Favoring those similar to the rater.

Illegal discriminatory bias

Favoring by race, gender, nationality, or religion

Contrast Errors

Comparing employees to each other instead of to standards.

Errors of Central Tendency

Rating everyone average to avoid conflict.

Errors of Leniency or Strictness

Raters are too kind or too harsh in scoring.

To increase the performance of people, teams, and the whole organization

PA system’s primary goal

Job-Related Criteria

The evaluation instrument should be closely related to the accomplishment of organizational goals.

Performance Expectations

Employees must understand in advance what is expected of them.

Standardization

The appraisal process is also similar to an employment policy in that it must adhere to established organizational norms.

Trained Appraisers

Ensures fair and accurate evaluation and constructive feedback.

Continuous Open Communication

Managers should address daily performance issues as they arise rather than allowing them to accumulate for six months or a year and then address them during the PA interview.

Performance Reviews

enables the HR to uncover any faults or omissions in the evaluation, or an employee may disagree with the judgment and choose to contest it.

Due Process

PA systems must have a procedure in place to pursue their complaints and have them addressed sincerely.

Appraisal Interview

the Achilles’ heel of the entire evaluation process.