PERFORMANCE APPRIASAL
The Performance appraisals are
essential for the effective management and evaluation of staff. Appraisals help
develop individuals, improve organizational performance, and feed into business
planning. Formal performance appraisals are generally conducted annually for
all staff in the organization. Each staff member is appraised by their line
manager. (Directors are appraised by the CEO, who is appraised by the chairman
or company owners, depending on the size and structure of the organization).
Annual performance appraisals enable management and monitoring of standards,
agreeing expectations and objectives, and delegation of responsibilities and
tasks. Staff performance appraisals also establish individual training needs
and enable organizational training needs analysis and planning. Performance
appraisals data feeds into organizational annual pay and grading reviews, and
coincides with the business planning for the next trading year. Performance
appraisals generally review each individual’s performance against objectives
and standards for the trading year, agreed at the previous appraisal meeting.
Performance appraisals are also essential for career and succession planning.
Performance appraisals are important for staff motivation, attitude and
behavior development, communicating organizational aims, and fostering positive
relationships between management and staff. Performance appraisals provide a
formal, recorded, regular review of an individual’s performance, and a plan for
future development. In short, performance and job appraisals are vital for
managing the performance of people and organizations.
TECHNIQUES
/ METHODS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS
Numerous methods have been devised to
measure the quantity and quality of performance appraisals. Each of the methods
is effective for some purposes for some organizations only. None should be
dismissed or accepted as appropriate except as they relate to the particular
needs of the organization or an employee.
Broadly all methods of appraisals can
be divided into different categories.
·
Past
Oriented Method
Past
Oriented Methods
1. Rating Scales: Rating scales consists of several
numerical scales representing job related performance criterions such as
dependability, initiative, output, attendance, attitude etc. Each scales ranges
from excellent to poor. The total numerical scores are computed and final
conclusions are derived. Advantages – Adaptability, easy to use, low cost,
every type of job can be evaluated, large number of employees covered, no
formal training required. Disadvantages – Rater’s biases
2. Checklist: Under this method, checklist of
statements of traits of employee in the form of Yes or No based questions is
prepared. Here the rater only does the reporting or checking and HR department
does the actual evaluation. Advantages – economy, ease of administration,
limited training required, standardization. Disadvantages – Raters biases, use
of improper weighs by HR, does not allow rater to give relative ratings
3. Forced Choice Method: The series of statements arranged in
the blocks of two or more are given and the rater indicates which statement is
true or false. The rater is forced to make a choice. HR department does actual
assessment. Advantages – Absence of personal biases because of forced choice.
Disadvantages – Statements may be wrongly framed.
4. Forced Distribution Method: here employees are clustered around a
high point on a rating scale. Rater is compelled to distribute the employees on
all points on the scale. It is assumed that the performance is conformed to
normal distribution. Advantages – Eliminates Disadvantages – Assumption of
normal distribution, unrealistic, errors of central tendency.
5. Critical Incidents Method: The approach is focused on certain
critical behaviors of employee that makes all the difference in the
performance. Supervisors as and when they occur record such incidents.
Advantages – Evaluations are based on actual job behaviors, ratings are
supported by descriptions, feedback is easy, reduces decency biases, chances of
subordinate improvement are high. Disadvantages – Negative incidents can be
prioritized, forgetting incidents, overly close supervision; feedback may be
too much and may appear to be punishment.
6. Behaviorally Anchored Rating
Scales: statements of
effective and ineffective behaviors determine the points. They are said to be
behaviorally anchored. The rater is supposed to say, which behavior describes
the employee performance. Advantages – helps overcome rating errors.
Disadvantages – Suffers from distortions inherent in most rating techniques.
7. Field Review Method: This is an appraisal done by someone
outside employees’ own department usually from corporate or HR department.
Advantages – Useful for managerial level promotions, when comparable
information is needed, Disadvantages – Outsider is generally not familiar with
employees work environment, Observation of actual behaviors not possible.
8. Performance Tests &
Observations: This
is based on the test of knowledge or skills. The tests may be written or an
actual presentation of skills. Tests must be reliable and validated to be
useful. Advantage – Tests may be apt to measure potential more than actual
performance. Disadvantages – Tests may suffer if costs of test development or
administration are high.
9. Essay Method: In this method the rater writes
down the employee description in detail within a number of broad categories
like, overall impression of performance, promote ability of employee, existing
capabilities and qualifications of performing jobs, strengths and weaknesses
and training needs of the employee. Advantage – It is extremely useful in
filing information gaps about the employees that often occur in a
better-structured checklist. Disadvantages – It its highly dependent upon the
writing skills of rater and most of them are not good writers. They may get
confused success depends on the memory power of raters.