Ch.7 Evaluating Employee Performance
Safety as a performance appraisal looks at
Workers who follow rules will less likely to get into accident and cost the org less money Can be an incentive for promotion
2 ways to use a behavioral checklist
1. Behavior focused: If the employee is doing what is right 2. Result Focused: Concentrate on what an employee accomplished as a result of what one did
Performance appraisal is inaccurate because
*Infrequent observation*--> Supervisors do not see most of an employee's behavior--> Managers are often busy w/ their own work
Distribution Error is a rating error in which
A rater will only use a certain part of a rating scale when evaluating employee performance
Things to consider in monitor the legality and fairness of the appraisal system
1. Has the org provide training to supervisors regarding how to evaluate performance, communicate appraisal results, mentor underperforming employees, and make decisions on the basis of the appraisal results 2. Do employees w/ similar performance ratings receive similar outcomes 3. Are people's rating dropped because of actual performance decrease or because of a potential discrimination 4. Are gender, race, ethnicity, disability, or age differences in performance ratings: Are they in the opportunities given to improve performance e.g., are low-rated Asian employee provided opportunity for improvement that is similarly situated Hispanic employee given the same opportunity
4 Reasons that employee can be legally terminated
1. Making mistakes during probationary period 2. Violation of company rules 3. Inability to perform 4. Economically caused reduction in force
Low Reliability across raters occurs because
1. Raters often commit rating errors 2. Raters often have very different standards and ideas about the ideal employee 3. Raters may see different behaviors by the same employee
In violating company rules
1. Rule against a particular behavior must actually exist--> Rules communicated in handbooks are the most legally defensible 2. Prove that an employee actually violated the rule 3. Extent to which the rule has been equally enforced--> If other employees violated the rule but were not terminated, terminating an employee for a particular rule violation may not be legal 4. Punishment needs to fit the crime: Employees in their probationary period can be immediately fired for a rule infraction
How mood and stress can influence rater
1. Stress: The amount of stress under which a supervisor operates affect performance ratings--> Raters who were placed in a stressful situation produced ratings with more errors than did raters who were not under stress 2. Mood: Can be more chill if the rater is in a chill mode
Effective and Legal Performance Appraisal Systems are
1. job-related and based on a job analysis 2. Are properly administered 3. Provide specific feedback 4. Use appropriate raters
Central tendency error is an example of distribution error where
A rater consistently rates all employees in the middle of the scale, regardless of their actual levels of performance
Paired Comparison is a form of appraisal on employees where
A group of employees to be ranked are compared one pair at a time Disadvantage: Complicated process to be done
When supervisors observe employee behavior and document, they often use *Critical Incidents*, which is
A method of performance appraisal in which the supervisor records employee behaviors that were observed on the job and rate the employee on the basis of that record o Critical incidents are examples of excellent and poor employee performance
Halo Errors occurs when
A rater allows either a single attribute or an overall impression of an individual to affect the ratings that one makes on each relevant job dimension Occurs when the rater has little knowledge of the job and is less familiar w/ the person being rated
Leniency Error is an example of distribution error where
A rater consistently gives all employees high ratings, regardless of their actual levels of performance
Proximity Errors occurs when
A rating made on one dimension affects the rating made on the dimension that immediately follows it on the rating scale Only the dimensions physically located nearest a particular dimension on the rating scale are affected i.e., close physical proximity of the dimension rather than an overall impression • E.g., rating an employee as bad just because he missed multiple days at work
Performance Appraisal Review is a meeting between
A supervisor and a subordinate for the purpose of discussing performance appraisal results • Providing feedback about what employees are doing right and wrong o Discuss employee's strengths and weakness & how weakness can be corrected
Why it is best to fire someone in the beginning of the week
Avoid rumor getting spread over the weekend
Extent to which organizational expectations are met is a way to rate employees on the extent to which
Behavior meets the expectations of the organization • Allow for high levels of feedback and can be applied to most types of employee behavior
Contrast Errors occurs when
Being evaluated right after someone really good might affect your evaluation score to be lower, simply because the last person is really good • Only occur when the person making the evaluation actually sees the employee perform and rates the employee during both rating periods
Frequency of Desired Behaviors stands for behaviors that
Can be rated based on the frequency w/ which they occur Ex: Expect production workers to follow safety guidelines if they always, almost always, often follow the rules
Quality of work is a type of objective criterion used to measure job performance by
Comparing a job behavior with a standard • Usually measured in terms of errors i.e., deviations from a standard, what it ought to look like
Employee Comparison can reduce leniency, which can be done through
Comparing one employee to another instead of being rated individually on a scale
Competency-Focused Performance Dimension is an appraisal dimension that
Concentrate on employee's knowledge, skills, and abilities o E.g., writing skills, oral presentation, driving skills o Easy to provide feedback & suggest the steps necessary to correct deficiencies
Trait-Focused Performance Dimensions is an appraisal dimension where it
Concentrates on employee attributes as dependability, honesty, and courtesy o Provide poor feedback and thus will not result in employee development & growth--> Trait are personal, can make one become defensive
Problem with Behavioral Checklist
Contamination: The condition in which a criterion score is affected by things other than those under the control of employee (Problem with the location, resource problems...etc.) • Ex: Police may not write enough traffic ticket in a neighbor without that many cars
Conducting Personnel Research is a part of determine the reason for evaluating employee performance that
Correlating test scores w/ some measure of job performance o To determine effectiveness, an accurate measure of performance must be available for use in determining whether performance increases as a result of training
Courts are more interested in the due process afforded by a performance appraisal system than in its technical aspects because
Decisions based on performance appraisal ratings are most likely to survive a legal challenge if they are based on a job analysis, raters received training and written instructions
Critical incidents should be communicated to the employee at the time they occur
Documentation helps supervisors recall behaviors when they are evaluating performance to avoid Primacy effect, Recent behaviors, Unusual/ extreme behaviors Behavior consistent w/ the supervisor's opinion
graphic rating scale method
Each employee is rated according to a scale of characteristics Scale 1~5 (1 is bad 5 is good)
Mixed-standard scale consists of ratings from
Employee relation & customer relation
Rank Order is a method of performance appraisal in which
Employees are ranked from best to worst Easily used when there are only a few employees to rank, difficulty w/ larger numbers
When communicating appraisal results to employee, supervisor should
Review the ratings she has assigned to the employee and the reasons for those ratings • Employee should rate their own performance using the same format as the supervisor
360-Degree Feedback (Multiple-source feedback) is a performance appraisal system in which
Feedback is obtained from multiple sources such as Supervisor, subordinates, Peers, customers, Self.
Determine the Reason for Evaluating Employee Performance can be done through
Forced-Choice Rating Scale: A method of performance appraisal in which a supervisor is given several behaviors and is forced to choose which of them is most typical of the employee
When giving feedback to the employee, feedback should be candid, specific, and behavioral rather than personal to avoid
Fundamental Attribution Error: Attribute others' failure or poor performance to personal rather than situational factors
Goal-Focused Performance Dimension is an appraisal dimension that organized the appraisal on the basis of
Goals to be accomplished by the employee o Ex: A police officer's job is to prevent crimes from occurring, finishing the shift w/o injury, minimizing the number of citizen complaints o Advantage: makes it easier for an employee to understand why certain behaviors are expected
Second step of evaluating employee performance is
Identify Environmental & Cultural Limitations 1. Environmental Limitation: Financial issue to conduct the appraisal--> Adequacy of the performance appraisal, not having enough money can hinder a good appraisal 2. Cultural Limitation: Language differences can result in miscommunication
Behavioral Checklists consists of
List of behaviors, expectations, or results for each dimension Force the supervisor to concentrate on the relevant behaviors that fall under a dimension Checklists are constructed from the task statements from a detailed job description and converting them into behavioral performance statements representing the level at which the behavior is expected to be performed
Quantity of work is an objective measure where it
Measure job performance by counting the number of relevant job behaviors that occur • E.g., judge a salesperson's performance by the units one sell • Often misleading: there are other factors one should consider
Critical-incident log helps
Reduce primacy, recency, and attention to unusual detail o Documentation forces supervisor to focus on employee behaviors rather than traits & provides behavioral examples to use when reviewing performance ratings w/ employee
Forced Distribution Method is a performance appraisal method in which a
Predetermined percentage of employees are placed into a number of performance categories Predetermined percentage of employees are placed in each of the five categories • *"Rank and Yank"* employees who performing 10% in the bottom are fired-->Increased levels of organizational productivity • Employee distribution has to be normally distributed to work well
Progressive discipline stands for
Providing employees with punishments of increasing severity, as needed, in order to change behavior E.g., • Counseling/ training • Probation • Suspension w/ pay • Transfer • Demotion
Strictness error is an example of distribution error where
Rater consistently gives all employees low ratings, regardless of their actual levels of performance
Rating Error Assimilation is a type of rating error in which
Raters base their rating of an employee during one rating period on the ratings the rater gave during a previous period • Ex: If a new supervisor reads that an employee's previous evaluation were excellent but observes the employee's poor performance, and still give the employee a good rating
How recent behaviors can affect one's performance being rated can be explained by
Recency Effect: Recent behaviors are given more weight in the performance evaluation than behaviors that occurred during the first few
Contextual performance is an appraisal dimension where it looks at the
The effort an employee makes to get along with peers, improve the organization, and perform tasks that are needed but not necessarily an official part of the employee's job description o Employees who not only will be effective performers but good organizational citizens as well (Prosocial behaviors helps the org's success) o Selection tests that might predict task performance (e.g., cognitive ability, job knowledge) are not the same tests that might predict contextual performance (e.g., integrity tests, personality inventories)
To address inability to perform, org will need to prove that
The employee could not perform the job and that progressive discipline was taken to give the employee an opportunity to improve Demonstrate that a reasonable standard of performance was commented & w/ a documented failure to meet the standard (e.g., critical incident logs and work samples)
Employment at will doctrine is
The opinion of courts in most states that employers have the right to hire and fire an employee at will and without any specific cause • Because employees are free to quit their job at will, so organizations are free to terminate an employee at will too o Employees cannot be fired for reason protected by federal or state law (e.g., protected class) o Employers cannot terminate an employee for exercising a legal duty such as jury duty or refusing to violate the law or professional ethics o Organization cannot fire the employee without a cause if an employee has a signed employment contract o If an employer implies that an employee has a job for life or can be fired only for certain reason employment at will doctrine is nullified
Frame-of-Reference Training is a method of training raters in which
The rater is provided with job-related information, a chance to practice ratings, examples of ratings made by experts, and the rationale behind the expert ratings 1. Communicate the organization's definition of effective performance and to then get raters to consider only relevant employee behaviors when making performance evaluations 2. Increases rater accuracy and reduce rater errors
Task-Focused Performance Dimension is an appraisal dimension where it is organized by
The similarity of tasks that are performed o Usually include several competencies Ex: Court testimony is a skill that police officer needs, which include public speaking, organization, and knowledge of the law o Advantage: Easier to evaluate performance b/c supervisors are concentrating on tasks that occur together o Disadvantage: More difficult to offer suggestion for how to correct the deficiency if an employee scores low on a dimension
Training raters involve
Training supervisors to become aware of the various rating errors and how to avoid them--> Increases accuracy and reduces rating errors, increases the validity of test validated against the ratings o Training technique uses discussion, practice in rating, and feedback about rating accuracy rather than lecture
Making Promotion Decisions helps determine
Which employees will be promoted oThe best employee at one level is not always the best at next level Peter Principle: The promotion of employees until they reach their highest level of incompetence
Attendance stands for
Worker showing up at work 1. Absenteeism 2. Tardiness 3. Time theft • Tenure: Those who have work longer are rewarded
Limitations on Employment-at-will Doctrine
o Federal or state law o Public policy or interest o Implied contracts o Covenants of good faith & fair dealing
Employee Performance Record is a standardized use of the critical-incident technique developed at GM, where
o Half of the sheet record examples o good behavior and half for bad Each side have columns for each of the relevant performance dimensions
When telling the appraisal results to employees, supervisor should inform the following
o The role of performance appraisal: Making decisions about salary increases and terminations is not its only purpose o How the performance appraisal was conducted o How the evaluation process was accomplished o The expectation that the appraisal interview will be interactive o Goal of understanding and improving performance
To layoff employee, organizations would have to
provide workers with at least 60 days notice If it is in the best economic interests of an organization to do so
Determining Salary Increases is part of the determine the reason for evaluating employee performance, where
• Difference in compensation between two individuals within the same job is a function of both tenure and job performance o Provide a fair basis on which to determine an employee's salary increase
Observation Behavior stands for
• Raters recall behaviors that are consistent with their general impression of an employee Raters who are familiar with the job being evaluated recall more judgments about performance but fewer behaviors than do raters who are unfamiliar with the job • Solution: Have multiple raters
