Ch 5, performance Appraisal

Performance Management

Continuous process of identifying, measuring, and developing performance and aligning it with strategic organizational goals.

Performance Appraisal (PA)

The systematic review and evaluation of job performance.

Three Main Purposes of PAs

Personnel decisions, developmental purposes, and documentation of organizational decisions.

Three Steps of the Feedback Process

1. Attend to feedback, 2. Process feedback, 3. Use feedback.

Feedback Environment

The situational, contextual side of feedback (e.g., source credibility, feedback quality).

Feedback Orientation

The individual-difference side representing an employee's overall receptivity to feedback.

Top-Down Approach

The traditional rating approach where direct supervisors conduct performance appraisals and deliver feedback.

Multisource (360-Degree) Feedback

Appraisal approach involving multiple raters at various levels, including supervisors, peers, subordinates, customers, and self.

Upward Appraisal

Ratings received from individuals whose organizational status is below that of the ratee.

Graphic Rating Scales

One of the oldest rating formats consisting of traits/behaviors judged on a scale with numerical or verbal anchors.

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)

Rating scales that provide actual behavioral descriptions (critical incidents) as anchors along the scale.

Retranslation Stage in BARS

An inter-rater reliability step where participants sort critical incidents into appropriate job dimensions to check for ambiguity.

Checklist Rating Format

Format where raters check off whether an employee exhibits a large number of listed positive and negative behaviors.

Forced Distribution

An employee comparison procedure where raters must place a designated proportion of ratees into specific categories (e.g., grading on a curve).

Halo Error

A rater's tendency to use a global evaluation to make dimension-specific ratings or fail to discriminate between dimensions.

Leniency Error

A distributional error where ratings are consistently higher than the midpoint or mean of the scale.

Central Tendency Error

A distributional error where raters use only the midpoint of the rating scale for all employees.

Severity Error

A distributional error where raters use only the low end of the rating scale.

Sensitivity

The ability of an assessment to adequately discriminate between effective and ineffective performers.

Horns Error

A rater's tendency to use a negative global evaluation to make dimension-specific ratings.

Management by Objectives (MBO)

A goal-setting process where managers and employees jointly set objectives for the employee to achieve.

Frame-of-Reference (FOR) Training

A rater training method designed to calibrate raters' standards so they share a common definition of effective and ineffective performance.

Critical Incidents Method

A qualitative appraisal method where supervisors record specific examples of effective and ineffective employee behavior.

Behavior Observation Scales (BOS)

A rating scale similar to BARS that measures the frequency of critical behaviors rather than evaluating behaviors.

Paired Comparison Method

An employee comparison method where each employee is compared directly to every other employee in pairs.

Feedback Intervention Theory (FIT)

A theory stating that feedback focuses attention on the task, the self, or task details, and feedback directed at the self can harm performance.

Recency Error

A rater error where recent events overly influence ratings.

Primacy Error

A rater error where initial impressions disproportionately influence evaluations.

Similar-to-Me Error

Rater tendency to favor employees perceived as similar to themselves.

Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

A structured process to address and correct employee performance deficiencies.

Forced-Choice Scale

A rating format requiring raters to choose between equally favorable statements.

Goal-Setting Theory

Theory that specific and challenging goals lead to higher performance.

Cascading Goals

Aligning individual employee goals with departmental and organizational strategic objectives.