7 - Performance Appraisal Flashcards
Performance appraisals are part of an organization’s measurement process. those that are well executed have the capabilities to _______ employee behavior and improve an organization’s _______, specifically—according to one study—in the areas of ______ growth, productivity, profitability and market value.
influence
performance
revenue
Appraisal programs serve administrative purposes by providing input that can be used for the entire range of human resource (HR) management activities, such as promotions, transfers, layoffs and pay decisions. The practice of “__________”—basing employees’ pay on their achievements—is found in all types of organizations. Studies have shown employees who earn performance-based pay are more satisfied.
Performance appraisal data can also be used for HR planning to determine the relative _____ of jobs, and as criteria for recruiting particular types of employees and validating selection tests. Yet another purpose of conducting performance appraisals is to document HR management actions that can result in ______ challenges.
With regards to the developmental purposes, the appraisal provides the feedback essential for discussing an employee’s goals and how they align with those of the organization. As with the ongoing feedback, the appraisal process provides managers and employees the opportunity to discuss ways to build on their strengths, eliminate potential weakness, identify problems and set new goals for achieving high performance.
Performance appraisals are also used to develop training and _______ plans for employees.
- “pay for performance”
- worth
- legal
- development
Among the primary reasons why performance appraisal systems might not be effective are:
- (a) Managers ______ about administering appraisals and want them to be over.
- (b) Managers not engaging employees in much _______.
- (c) Managers sometimes reluctant to ________ an employee’s performance.
- (d) Managers lacking the _______ to execute an effective performance review session.
- (e) Insufficient _______ in some situations to differentiate levels of performance.
- nervous
- conversation
- evaluate
- skills
- money
Performance appraisal standards, or criteria, must be based on _______ requirements and must be clearly defined and communicated. When established properly, they will translate job requirements into levels of acceptable/unacceptable employee performance. In selecting performance standards, there are four basic considerations:
- (1) Strategic ______: Standards should be related to the strategic objectives of the organization and job. For example, if a standard that 95% of all customer complaints will be resolved in one day is appropriate to the job of customer service representative, then the standard is said to be relevant to job success.
- (2) Criterion ______: Standards should cover the entire range of employees’ responsibilities. When they are focused on a single thing such as sales revenues to the exclusion of other important performance dimensions, the system suffers from this
- (3) Criterion _______: Standards should be capable of being objectively applied. For example, comparison of performance among production workers should not be _______ by the fact that some have newer machines than others.
- (4) Reliability: The reliability of a standard refers to its stability or consistency, that is, the extent to which individuals tend to maintain a certain level of _______ over time. In ratings, reliability may be measured by correlating two sets of ratings made by a single rater or by two different raters. For example, two employment interviewers may interview the same group of job applicants and predict job success. The interviewer ratings could be compared to determine an indication of interrater reliability.
job-related
- relevance
- deficiency
- contamination / contaminated
- performance
since performance appraisals are used as one basis for human resources and compensation administration actions, they must meet certain legal requirements. for example, courts have held that performance standards must be carefully defined and _______.
Also, an employer might face a legal challenge to its appraisal system when it ______ an employee for poor performance, while under the existing rating system the employee’s performance has been found to be acceptable or above average
measurable
disciplines
Various court and regulatory agency rulings suggest that performance appraisals should meet the following guidelines:
- (a) Performance ratings must be ________ with performance standards developed through a job analysis.
- (b) Employees must be given a written copy of their _______ in advance of appraisals.
- (c) Managers who conduct appraisals must be able to _______ the behavior they are rating. This implies having measurable standards by which to compare employee behavior.
- (d) ________ problems should not be allowed to continue unchecked. Problems should be documented when they occur and should be referred to in employees’ appraisals.
- (e) Supervisors should be trained to use the _______ correctly, including how to apply appraisal standards when making judgments.
- (f) Appraisals should be discussed openly with employees, and counseling or _________ offered to help substandard performers to improve.
- (g) An _______ procedure should be established for employees to use.
- job related
- job standards
- observe
- Performance
- appraisal form
- corrective guidance
- appeals
Systems of self-appraisal are used in some instances too. In this approach an employee evaluates himself or herself with the techniques used by other evaluators. This approach often is more applicable for the _________, as opposed to evaluative, aspects of performance evaluation.
Subordinate appraisal systems are used in some organizations even though this approach involves many problems. They are useful for management developmental purposes rather than compensation. Also, they must provide anonymity to the raters.
A few organizations use systems of rating employees by peers or co-workers of employees. In the peer evaluation system, the co-workers must know the level of performance of the employee being evaluated. Also, it is preferable for the evaluating peers to trust one another and not be competitive for raises and promotions. This approach tends to be useful when the tasks of the work unit require frequent _______ among peers who then gain knowledge about each other’s qualities of performance which supervisors generally could not observe.
- *Team appraisal** is an extension of the peer appraisal approach and focuses on team accomplishment rather than individual performance.
- *External customer appraisals** have been used for some time by organizations. Another approach has been to use internal customer appraisals where anyone who depends on the output of another’s work becomes an appraiser.
developmental
working contacts
Some managers have a tendency to evaluate everyone the same and in the middle. This type of bias is called __________. For example, a manager might assess all employees as having average performance regardless of their actual performance levels.
central tendency
Some evaluators have a tendency to rate all employees either too leniently or too strictly. A manager who rates all employees leniently might rate all employees as above average in performance. Conversely, a manager who evaluates all employees too strictly might rate their performances as below average.
excessive strictness or leniency
One difFIculty with many evaluation systems is the time frame of the behavior being evaluated. Evaluators forget more about past behavior than current behavior. Thus, many persons are evaluated more on the results of the past several weeks rather than on the basis of average behavior over the relevant appraisal period. This phenomenon is known as the ________.
recency error
______ occurs when an evaluation of an employee is biased upward or downward because of the evaluation of another employee who was just evaluated previously. For example, an average employee may appear especially productive when compared with
a poor performer.
Contrast error
__________ occurs when an appraiser inflates the evaluation of an employee with whom the appraiser has something in common. When the similarity is based on race, religion, gender or some other protected category, it may result in discrimination
Similar-to-me error
- Performance appraisal methods can be broadly classified as measuring traits, behaviors or results. Trait appraisals are popular despite their inherent ________.
- Behavioral approaches provide action-oriented information and may be best for ________.
- Results-oriented approaches focus on the measurable ________ that employees make to an organization
subjectivity
development
contributions
The ____________ method of performance appraisal requires the evaluator to rate employees on each of a set of characteristics listed on a scale. The number of characteristics rated varies from a few to several dozen, for example, quality of work, productivity, initiative and the like. (Sometimes these ratings are then assigned points. For example, outstanding may be assigned a score of four and unsatisfactory a score of zero. Total scores can then be computed. In some plans, greater weights may be assigned to more important traits.)
Evaluators often are required to explain each rating with a sentence or two. These comments improve the accuracy of the appraisal because they require the rater to think in terms of observable employee behaviors while providing specific examples to discuss with the employee during the appraisal meeting.
graphic rating scale
The _________ method of performance appraisal is a modification of the basic rating scale method. Rather than evaluating traits according to a single scale, the rater is given _____ descriptions of each trait, reflecting superior, average and inferior performance.
mixed standard scale
three
