Appraisal Types

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Appraisal Types
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APPRAISAL METHODS

• NARRATIVES
• ESSAYS CRITICAL INCIDENTS
• RANKING COMPARISONS
• ALTERNATION PAIRED COMPARISONS
• CHECKLISTS
• SIMPLE WEIGHTED
• RATING SCALES
• GRAPHIC RATING SCALES BEHAVIORALLY ANCHORED
  RATING SCALES (BARS) BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATION
  SCALES (BOS)
• OBJECTIVE MEASURES
• NATURAL COUNTS (Quantity produced, etc)
  GOALSETTING STANDARDS (MBO, etc)

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Performance appraisal attempts to

• Give feedback to improve subsequent performance
• Identify training needs
• Document criteria used to allocate rewards
• Form a basis for personnel decisions
• Provide the opportunity for development
• Facilitate communication
• Validate selection techniques and human resource
  policies to meet federal EEO requirements.

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Appraisal Formats

• Many different formats and procedures have been
  tried to meet these multiple objectives.
• There are relatively few special rules or special
  principles applicable only to the specific
  purposes.
• There are common formats.

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Issues with standard practice

• Despite its standard practice in most public and
  private organizations for more than 50 years,
  performance appraisal still has many problems.
• Raters show resistance to criticizing
  subordinates, and the judgmental aspect of
  evaluating human performance is subject to both
  covert (subjective and individual) and overt
  (prejudice and bias) errors.
• Another consideration is that federal
  legislation, court decisions, and guidelines of
  several federal agencies have targeted
  performance appraisal as a validation procedure
  for employee selection techniques and preventing
  discrimination in the workplace. The courts have
  found organizations in violation of civil rights
  laws in failing to validate performance appraisal
  criteria and methods.

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Performance Appraisal Methods

• Performance appraisals take many forms.
• Written essays, the simplest essay method, is a
  written narrative assessing an employee's
  strengths, weaknesses, past performance,
  potential, and provides recommendations for
  improvement.
• Types of performance appraisal methods include
  comparative standards (such as, simple ranking,
  paired comparison, forced distribution) and
  absolute standards (such as, critical incidents,
  BARS, MBO).

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Comparative Standards or Multi-person Comparison

• This relative, as opposed to absolute method,
  compares one employee's performance with that of
  one or more others.
• In group rank ordering the supervisor places
  employees into a particular classification such
  as "top one-fifth" and "second one-fifth". If a
  supervisor has ten employees, only two could be
  in the top fifth, and two must be assigned to the
  bottom fifth.
• In individual ranking the supervisor lists
  employees from highest to lowest. The difference
  between the top two employees is assumed
  equivalent to the difference between the bottom
  two employees.
• In paired comparison the supervisor compares each
  employee with every other employee in the group
  and rates each as either superior or weaker of
  the pair. After all comparisons are made, each
  employee is assigned a summary or ranking based
  on the number of superior scores received.

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Formats

• Critical Incidents. The supervisor's attention is
  focused on specific or critical behaviors that
  separate effective from ineffective performance.
• Graphic Rating Scale. This method lists a set of
  performance factors such as job knowledge, work
  quality, cooperation that the supervisor uses to
  rate employee performance using an incremental
  scale.
• Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS). BARS
  combine elements from critical incident and
  graphic rating scale approaches. The supervisor
  rates employees according to items on a numerical
  scale.

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Formats

• Management by Objectives. MBO evaluates how well
  an employee has accomplished objectives
  determined to be critical in job performance.
• This method aligns objectives with quantitative
  measures such as sales, profits, zero-defect
  units produced.
• 360 Degree Feedback. This multi-source feedback
  method provides a comprehensive perspective of
  employee performance by utilizing feedback from
  the full circle of people with whom the employee
  interacts supervisors, subordinates and
  co-workers. It is effective for career coaching
  and identifying strengths and weaknesses. See 360
  Degree examples http//www.bmpcoe.org/bestpractice
  s/external/mash/mash_18.html and
  http//www.bmpcoe.org/bestpractices/external/ccad/
  ccad_23.html

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Which format?

• Which one works?
• What have you seen in action?
• Is it the format or the underlying concept that
  is problematic?

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SUMMARY GUIDELINES FOR APPRAISALS

• Appraisal standards are job related
• Standards are clearly communicated to employees
  in advance
• Standards are responsive to actual worker
  behavior or effort
• Activities performed and results achieved are
  both appraised
• Acceptable vs. unacceptable results can clearly
  be discerned
• Appraisal criteria are consistently applied
• Raters are able to consistently observe work
  performance
• Raters are trained in appraisal and how to
  feedback results
• Developmental feedback is separated from
  judgmental appraisal
• An appeal process exists to resolve (judgmental)
  rating disputes