Performance Appraisal: 5 Things to Consider

Since organisations are run by people, the performance of organisations, therefore, is dependent on the sum total of the performance of individual members. According to Peter Drucker, ‘an organisation is like a tune; it is not constituted by individual sounds but by their syntheses. The success of organisations, therefore, depends on the ability to measure accurately the performance of individuals and use such information to optimize the use of man as a vital resource.

 MEANING OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Performance appraisal or performance evaluation is the systematic evaluation of an individual employee with respect to job performance. It is targeted at the evaluation of the performance, personality, and potential of group members. Since performance is about the extent of attainment of specific job targets, appraisal assists in evaluating and communicating factors on the job that enhances or hinders goals attainment. It could be carried out.

1.   Informally. Supervisors assess subordinates’ performance continually, in the normal course of work giving feedback on performance and advice on how to improve.

2.      Formally. Systematic, orderly, planned and time-indexed activity aimed at the record, feedback, advice, reward, promotion and training need identification.

REASONS FOR PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Performance appraisal serves the following ten objectives:

1.    Employee performance: It provides the opportunity for both superior and subordinate to review the latter’s work in terms of what is done according to set standards or what falls short of expectation.

2.     Employee Development: During evaluation training needs are identified. Also, the potential or capacity to assume greater responsibility may be discovered.

3.   Supervisory understanding: In formal appraisal, the supervisor’s review of subordinates’ work gives him further understanding of tasks, duties and responsibilities as they relate to him and the workers under his span of control. Mutual understanding is therefore enhanced and areas of friction could be worked upon.

4.  Guide to changes: Appraisal reviews the mode of work, and work content and may throw up issues like job reconstruction (i.e. design or redesign) job enlargement and the need for new technology or global organisational restructuring. It can also suggest the need to promote, demote, transfer and rotate jobs.

5.   Wage and Salary Adjustment: One of the uses of appraisal is to assist in the reward of performance beyond standard. Performance evaluation results have been found useful in the periodic salary review in organisations. For organizations emphasizing performance incentives scheme appraisal assists indirectly tying pay to performance.

6.   Validate Personnel Decisions: The degree to which selection and placement decisions are valid can be cross-checked using the outcome of the performance appraisal exercise. Scores predicting success on the job, on the basis of which employees were selected, can be easily correlated to appraisal scores. The coefficient of correlation is an index of the predictive validity of the selected process.

7.  Research Tool: The outcome of periodic appraisal when properly recorded and analyzed can score as a veritable research tool for organisational change of work mode, selection process training programmes, and indeed the appraisal instrument itself. It also adds to job analysis data

8.   A useful tool in employee participation: In the past appraisal is a unilateral judgment of a subordinate’s level of compliment on the job. The modern system duly incorporates feedback, discussion and job counselling. Employees’ views, and feelings suggestions and are sought as a step in decision making and improving morale.

9.   Removing work alienation: Performance appraisal helps employees to internalize the values and norms of jobs and is useful in counselling on issues, misconceptions and challenges on the job.

10.   Exercising control: Performance appraisal is a useful tool of managerial control of the process of work by setting clear criteria for reward and sanction.

11.   Achieving equity and justice: Objective performance appraisal ensures that decisions about work objectives, evaluation and reward are based on objective criteria that can be attested to and justified by management.

MODE OF APPRAISAL

Appraisal involves reporting on job incumbents in an open or closed reporting system. An open system gives appraisal the opportunity to agree or reject evaluation while in the close system such opportunity is non-existent. In most systems, two or more parties are involved.

1.     The appraiser(s) or rater(s): The boss and a number of relevant others may be involved in assessing the job incumbent.

2.    Appraise: The job incumbent whose performance is been evaluated

Who does appraisal? This ranges from job incumbent to the boss and other stakeholders identified below;

1.     Supervisor: The appraisal is conducted by the boss who works closely with the appraisal and who is assumed to have an adequate understanding of the job in question.

2.    Peer or Colleagues: Rating is done by those of equal rank or who are members of the same rating by the superior.

3.     Subordinate: Rating of work-related attributes is done by persons of lower job status as subordinate rates his supervisor. An example exists in the University system where students rate their lecturers, as an input to the latter’s overall assessment.

4.    Self: Job incumbent rates himself/herself against prescribed job standards. This is suitable in an environment where employee participates in setting or wholly set their own job goals.

5.    Customer:  Users of services may be involved in the appraisal, especially where relevant work behaviours such as promptness, politeness, speed of rendering service and such like are being assessed.

6.    Consultant. Expert nations may be brought to inject greater objectivity into the appraisal scheme. The expert must however have relevant job knowledge.

7.    Combination of many raters. The boss has been blamed for several forms of appraisal bias. In most cases rating may be based on factors bothering on supervisor- subordinate’s interpersonal relationship rather than factors on the job. Adding ratings of others, which may include some of those earlier mentioned makes up for such bias. An appraisal system described as 360-degree appraisal uses the input of all relevant stakeholders who are affected by one’s performance and deal with you close enough to be able to answer specific questions about the way one had interacted with them; self, boss, peers, customers, subordinates and team members to assess job incumbents

It is important to note that the appraisal exercise may be objective or subjective depending on the extent to noted steps and systematic rules and procedures of performance appraisal are adhered to. To do this, appraisal instruments are increasingly focussing on improving employee capacity rather than mere evaluation

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL METHODS

There are several choices of methods ranging from the simple to the complex, or from qualitative rating to quantitative. These are briefly discussed.

1.     Essay report

Raters in their own word assess employees with respect to some performance yardsticks. The approach provides ample opportunity for the supervisor to state without much restraint all job incidents that he deems relevant to the appraisal. This approach is limited by the extent of supervisor’s ability to correctly report observations, his memory and language skill is also a limitation. Also, inter-rater discrepancies are rampant; making the process not so reliable or valid. It can be improved if the report is guided by reference to clear and specific job behaviour.

2.    Ranking

The assessor uses one particular yardstick to compare a group of workers and rank them from highest to lowest performance. It is most useful where the numbers of workers are few and personally supervised by a rater. However, it is difficult to assess or analyse people’s performance along with their potential and equally compare several people simultaneously.

3.     Forced-choice

This method asks raters to assess job incumbents in terms of selected objectives describing job behaviours. The objectives are rated along dimensions like outstanding, good, satisfactory and unsatisfactory. The process is easy to understand and appears to overcome some of the problems of the easy type. Several criteria can be assessed and applied to several employees. The major disadvantage is that the ratter is forced to rate appraisee favourably or otherwise, which may lead to a halo effect or such errors as leniency or central tendency.

4.    Critical incident

The assessor observes and records the relevant incident on the job. These are incidents of outstanding or poor performance, accidents and such. The record is kept over the appraisal period and increases readiness with which the appraisee agrees with the appraiser during feedback and discussion. Feedback is however delayed till appraisal time and behaviours continue that could have been corrected if earlier feedback is given. Also, not many employees want records of poor performance in black and white however factual or true this may be. Little balance has been found between the record of positive and negative incidents. Raters tend to concentrate on either, neglecting the other. This is a major bias and points against the method.

5.    Log bookkeeping

The rater, usually the incumbent or the boss is encouraged to keep daily or weekly or monthly diary recording activities and events on the job. The record is made useful in the appraisal period if it is faithfully kept and taps into relevant and salient job-related behaviour and activities. It is capable of making up for lapses in memory that may occur in an essay or critical incident approach.

6.     Adjective checklist

A checklist of all salient behaviour is presented to the rater who is to tick those activities he/she had observed in the course of the appraisal period. The checklist, of course, serves as a memory trigger and can be weighted to achieve a quantitative measure of performance.

7.    Graphic Rating

It is an old method and is widely used. Traits or behaviours are rated by attaching certain numerical values. It is devised to eliminate the biases noticed in previous methods. For an example Ratings can be in the form below:Quality of work,         Poor, Below  average, Average, Good,  Very Good and Outstanding

Initiative                    ,,        ,,                        ,,          ,,            ,,                      ,,

Leadership quality     ,,        ,,                        ,,          ,,            ,,                      ,,

This approach leads to quantitative measures and an opportunity to rank job incumbents differentially to serve as a basis for the reward of high performers. The process can be improved by training raters on the agreed meaning of terms used to describe job behaviours.

8.      Behavioural Anchored Ratings (BAR)

Emphasis is not on who does the rating but on behaviours that are crucial to performance.

9.      Management By Objective (MBO)

Performance is principally measured against results as derived from well-defined work objectives.

10.      Assessment Centres 

Assessment is based on responses to a battery of tests administered by consultants from an assessment centre.

APPRAISAL PITFALLS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

The problems are many and varied. Some of which are;

1.     Problem of reliability: Is appraisal consistently assessing the same traits over time?

2.      Problem of validity: Is appraisal assessing the appropriate traits? Are traits or behaviours relevant to job success being assessed?

3.      Selecting relevant traits: Some traits are difficult to define. Apart from this, it should be clear that selected traits are critical to job success.

4.      Leniency or strictness: Some raters consistently rate higher (leniency) while others rate low (strictness). This can lead to an unfavourable rating where different raters assess different workers or departments. It is important to train raters to avoid this bias

5.      Halo Effect: This involves rating employees positive or negative on the basis of one quality. That is, one positive or negative quality interacts with ratings on other qualities. Rating all employees on quality before moving to the next can minimize it.

6.       Central tendency: This error occurs as a result of pitting rating around the average; neither strict nor generous. Such a rater often fails to discriminate between superior and inferior workers. The rater may lack job knowledge, is indifferent, in haste or simply careless.

7.      Recency effect: Rater put excessive weight on recent behaviour(s) while earlier ones are not brought into the appraisal. This happens if appraisal occurs at the end of the evaluation period in such a way the behaviours earlier in the years had faded out of memory. Keeping records on an ongoing basis can assist in incidents (positive or negative) at the beginning of the appraisal year constitute the basis for the year-long appraisal? These biases can be reduced to the barest minimum by the following means;

1.       Raters education

2.       Choice of appraisal method

3.       Using more than one rater

4.       Conducting appraisal interview to address the appraisee’s misgivings

CONCLUSION

Performance appraisal is a means by which performance of objectives can be assessed using key performance indicators that reflect work objectives and by choice of appropriate method from the range of available options. The appraisal is better done by core stakeholders who understand the job and understand how to avoid common appraisal pitfalls.