Sample performance appraisal comments
- 1. Sample performance appraisal comments Performance appraisal is the measurement of employee performance. Before we look at techniques for performance appraisal, let's consider, why performance should be appraised in the first place. Why Appraise Performance? There are many reasons for measuring how well employees are performing. First, many administrative decisions, such as those dealing with promotions, salary increases, and layoffs, depend on performance appraisals. Second, if employees are to do their jobs better in the future, they need to know how well they have done them in the past so that they can make adjustments in their work patterns as necessary. Finally, performance appraisal is necessary as a check on new policies and programs. For example, if a new pay system has been implemented, it would be useful to see whether it has had a positive effect on employee performance. Pitfalls in Performance Appraisal Performance appraisal is a difficult process. Problems may occur because of the nature of the job, the rater, or the situation. For instance, accurate appraisal is particularly difficult when work is non routine, when the rate and raters have differing perspectives, and when the appraisal system is incompatible with organization structure or technology. Further, many of the perceptual problems plague the performance-appraisal process. Clearly, great care needs to be exercised in selection, use, and refinement of performance-appraisal systems. Types of Performance Measures There are three major ways by which performance may be appraised. Appraisal can focus on traits, behaviors, or accomplishments. TRAIT APPROACHES Under trait approaches, a manager or performance appraiser rates an employee on such traits as friendliness, efficiency, and reliability. Presumably, these traits are related to performance. One such approach asks the appraiser to check the word or phrase (such as "outstanding," "average," or "poor") that best describes how an employee rates on each trait. These trait approaches are very popular, but they suffer from a number of problems. For instance, words such as "superior" and "average" may mean different things to different people. The people appraising performance may feel uncomfortable giving someone a low score on such traits as efficiency, decisiveness, or supervisory ability, especially if their ratings will be shown to the person being rated. Appraisers may also be prone to various biases and rating errors. BEHAVIORAL APPROACHES Behavioral approaches involve the recording of specific employee actions. With the critical incidents method, for example, the performance appraiser keeps a list of all the things the employee did that were especially good or bad. Sometimes, such incidents
- 2. are gathered from job incumbents and/or supervisors, and a list of incidents discriminating between high and low performers is developed. A newer and somewhat related approach, the behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS), presents a list of possible employee actions, ranging from very desirable to very undesirable. An example of good performance for a grocery checker might be "By knowing the price of items, this checker would be expected to look for mismarked and unmarked items." An example of poor performance might be "In order to take a break, this checker can be expected to block off the check stand with people in line." The rater checks the action on the scale that the employee would be most likely to engage in. By focusing on specific actions, behavioral approaches are an improvement on the earlier trait approaches because they consider things under the control of the employee rather than things which might be heavily influenced by other factors. They specify exactly what the employee needs to do to get a good rating, and they provide the basis for concrete feedback. Sometimes, however, they give employees the uncomfortable feeling that there is always a rater looking over their shoulders. OUTCOME APPROACHES Rather than consider traits or actions, some appraisal techniques rate what the employee is supposed to accomplish on the job. One of these approaches is management by objectives. Such approaches may be time-consuming, and they may also cause appraisers to focus only on objectives that can be easily expressed in numbers. They do, however, get directly at the things that the company cares most about, and they let the employee know specifically which outcomes are most important. Who Appraises Performance? Our discussion of performance appraisal has focused on the evaluation of employees' performance by their superiors. However, employees may also be rated by peers or subordinates. Peer assessment has been widely used, and it is generally considered to be highly valid and reliable. There is also growing use of ratings by subordinates. General Electric, Libby-Owens-Ford Co., and Southern California Edison are among the companies in which workers rate their bosses. It is argued that subordinates may be in ideal positions to evaluate their bosses for leadership, organization, and crisis- management skills. Subordinates tend to be tougher raters of their supervisor than is the supervisor's boss. Unfortunately, many managers find it hard to deal with criticisms from their subordinates, and they may ignore the appraisals. Can a University grade your performance? Judging academic rather than professional qualities is one shaky bridge that has created a rift between academics and professionals. Even in today's academic environment, there has not been a common agreement between all Universities and Colleges on how a persons professional experience, can be assessed academically. http://performanceappraisalebooks.info/ : Over 200 ebooks, templates, forms for performance appraisal.