Chapter 6
Who Conducts Appraisals?
Supervisors who rate their subordinates Employees who rate their supervisors Team members who rate each other Employees' self-appraisals Outside sources rating employees Multisource (360° feedback) appraisal
Appraisal Feedback
Appraisal interview Feedback as a system Data Evaluation Action
Training of Managers and Employees
Appraisal process and timing Performance criteria and job standards that should be considered How to communicate positive and negative feedback When and how to discuss training and development goals Conducting and discussing the compensation review How to avoid common rating errors
Team/Peer Rating-disadvantages
Can negatively affect working relationships. Can create difficulties for managers in determining individual performance. Organizational use of individual performance appraisals can hinder the development of teamwork
Narrative Methods
Critical Incident-Critical incident method: manager keeps a written record of highly favorable and unfavorable employee actions. Essay Methods-manager writes a short essay describing each employee's performance during rating period
Drawbacks of Narrative Methods
Critical incident & Essay Method-Variations in how managers define a "critical incident";Time involved in documenting employee actions: Drawbacks Most employee actions are not observed and may become different if observed; Employee concerns about manager's "black books"; Depends on managers' writing skills and their ability to express themselves
Informal Appraisal
Day-to-day contacts, largely undocumented
Administrative Use of Appraisal
Determining pay adjustments Making job placement decisions on promotions, transfers, and demotions Choosing employee disciplinary actions up to and including termination of employment
Appraisal Feedback continued
Effective Performance Management: Consistent with the strategic mission of the organization Beneficial as development tool Useful as an administrative tool Legal and job-related Viewed as generally fair by employees Effective in documenting employee performance
Systematic Appraisal
Formal contact at regular time intervals, usually documented
Methods for Appraising Performance
Graphic rating scales Focus should be on the job duties and responsibilities identified in job descriptions Behavioral rating scales Describe specific examples of employee job behaviors
Team/Peer Rating-advantages
Helps improve the performance of lower-rated individuals Peers have opportunity to observe other peers. Peer appraisals focus on individual contributions to teamwork and team performance.
Employee Rating of Managers- advantages
Helps in identifying competent managers Serves to make managers more responsive to employees Can contribute to the career development of managers
Legal Concerns and Performance Appraisals
Job-relatedness of performance appraisals Nondiscriminatory process Documentation
Goals of Effective Performance Appraisals
Legal compliance and documentation Administrative uses Developmental uses
Timing of Appraisal
Once or twice a year, most often annually 60-90 days after hiring, again at six months, and annually thereafter
Management by Objectives (MBO)
Management by Objectives Specifying performance goals individuals and their managers agree employees will to try to attain within an appropriate length of time Combination of Methods Sensible in some circumstances
Employee Rating of Managers - disadvantages
Negative reactions by managers to employee ratings Subordinates' fear of reprisals may inhibit them from giving realistic (negative) ratings Ratings are useful only for self-improvement purposes
Terms for Defining Standards
Outstanding(1) Exceeds Expectations(2) Meets Expectations(3) Below expectations(4) Unsatisfactory(5)
Performance Management
Processes used to identify, encourage, measure, evaluate, improve, and reward employee performance and through which managers ensure that employees activities and outputs contribute to the organizations goals
Drawbacks of Comparative methods
Ranking-Drawback: does not show size of differences in performance between employees. Forced Distribution-Drawbacks: Resistance by managers to placing individuals in the lowest or highest groups. Providing explanation for placement in a higher or lower grouping can be difficult.
Comparative Methods
Ranking-all employees from highest to lowest in performance. Forced Distribution- Performance appraisal method in which ratings of employees are distributed along a bell-shaped curve
Types of Performance Information
Trait-based information Identifies a character trait of the employee—such as attitude, initiative, or creativity—and may or may not be job related Behavior-based information Focuses on specific behaviors that lead to job success Results-based information Considers employee accomplishments Performance Measures Objective measures can be observed directly. Subjective measures require judgment on the part of the evaluator.
Performance information
What an employee does and does not do: reference to the Quantity & Quality of output, Timeliness of output and Presence at work
Performance Appraisal
method of measuring employees' adherence to performance standards and providing feedback in relation to said adherence
Administrative developmental use
primary source of information & feedback---key to future development of company -- used to identify strengths, weaknesses, potentials, and training needs