Assessing Employee Performance:Criterion Problem Flashcards
What is a Job Analysis?
A systematic method for collecting the information needed to DESCRIBE JOB REQUIREMENTS.
Its results serve as the basis for developing criterion measures and also provide information that facilitates work force planning and training program design, assists with decisions about job redesign, and helps identify the causes of accidents and other safety-related problems.
What are the Methods of Job Analysis?
- Observing employees, supervisors, and others familiar with the job; reviewing company records; and having employees keep a job diary
- Job-oriented methods: provide information about the characteristics of the tasks that are performed on the job.
- Worker-oriented methods:provide information about the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (“KSAOs”) that a worker needs to perform the job successfully.EX:Position Analysis Questionnaire(PAQ)-and other worker-oriented methods provide info that are more helpful in designing training programs and deriving criterion measures that provide useful employee feedback.
What is Job Evaluation?
Job Evaluation differs from job analysis in that the procedures differ. A Job Evaluation is performed to determine the WORTH of JOBS in order to set SALARIES AND WAGES. Techniques of job evaluation range from judgmental to the statistical, but all emphasize identifying compensable factors such as skills and education required, degree of autonomy, and responsibility, and the consequences of errors. Techniques are often used to establish COMPARABLE WORTH–i.e., to ensure that people who are performing comparable work receive comparable pay. This involves using same job evaluation technique (usually point system) for all jobs and point system based on basis of each job’s inherent value rather than job title assigned equal salaries.Some say this is biased with gender discrimination and perpetuate it.
Organizations use a variety of Criterion Measures to assess employee performance. The choice of a measure involves considering the information obtained from a job analysis, the goals of the performance assessment, and the advantages and disadvantages of the various types of criterion measures. What are the types of Criterion Measures and describe these?
Criterion measures are classified as Objective (Direct) or Subjective.
Objective (direct) measures include QUANTITATIVE Measures of production such as units produced, sold, or rejected, and certain types of personnel data including accidents, absenteeism, and salary and promotion history
Often INADEQUATE, May be BIASED by situational factors such as differences in equipment, territory, or supplies, which makes it difficult to compare the performance of different employees or the performance of the same employee at different times or in different situations.Many important aspects of job effectiveness(e.g., cooperation with coworkers, job motivation) cannot be assessed with objective measures, and these measures are often unavailable for complex professional, managerial, and administrative jobs.
Subjective Measures are the MOST frequently used performance assessment techniques in organizations and usually take the form of ratings that reflect the judgment of the rater. While ratings by an employee’s immediate supervisor as the most common type of rating, subordinate, peer, and self-ratings are sometimes used. Studies comparing the usefulness of these different sources of ratings have found that (a)self-ratings tend to be most lenient but are less susceptible to halo bias; (b0 supervisor ratings are generally the most reliable; (c) peer ratings are particularly good for predicting training success and subsequent promotions; and (d) subordinate, peer, and supervisor ratings usually agree more with each other than with self-ratings
What is criterion contamination?
Criterion contamination occurs when a criterion measure assesses factors other than those it was designed to measure. EX: contamination is occurring when a rater’s knowledge of a ratee’s performance on a predictor affects how the rater rates the ratee on the criterion. It can artificially inflate the criterion-related validity coefficient.
What are the 2 types of techniques used for Subjective Criterion Measures?
- Relative (comparative) technique-requires the rater to compare the performance of two or more employees
- Absolute technique-provides information on a ratee’s performance without reference or comparison to other employees.
What is an advantage and disadvantage of the Relative technique?
Advantage: Can help to alleviate rater biases
Disadvantage: they force the rater to place some ratees at high or low performance levels, even when most or all employees are performing at about the same level;they are prohibited by law for most federal jobs;raters and ratees often dislike them; and they are less useful than absolute measures for obtaining the information needed to provide employees with specific feedback about their job performance.
What are the 2 types of Relative Techniques and are more susceptible to rater biases?
Subjective Criterion Measures:Relative Type
- Paired Comparison:When using technique, the rater compares each ratee w/every other ratee in pairs on one or more dimensions of job performance.Disadvantage:Becomes Cumbersome to use as the number of ratees increases
- Forced Distribution: Similar to “grading on the curve” and involves assigning ratees to a limited number of categories based on a predefined normal distribution on one or more dimensions of job performance (e.g., lowest 10%, next 20%, middle 40%, next 20%, highest 10%). Disadvantage: it may yield erroneous data if the performance of ratees is not actually normally distributed
What are the 4 types of Absolute Techniques?
Subjective Criterion Measure:Absolute Technique
- Critical Incident Technique
- Forced Choice Rating Scale
- Graphic Rating Scale
- Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)
Describe Critical Incident Technique.
Critical Incident Technique involves first deriving a checklist of critical incidents by having the supervisor observe employees while they work and record specific behaviors that are associated with outstanding and poor performance. Then, when using the technique for performance appraisal, the rater marks those items in the checklist that apply to the ratee. The primary Disadvantages are that its development requires close supervision of employees and accurate record keeping by the rater; it addresses only critical (extreme) job behaviors, not typical ones; and it does not indicate the frequency or degree to which a behavior occurs.
Describe Forced Choice Rating Scale
Each Item in a Forced Choice Rating Scale consists of two to four alternatives that are considered to be about equal in terms of desirability, and the rater selects the alternative that best or least describes the ratee. Although the forced choice technique can help reduce rater biases, it is time-consuming to develop and is often disliked by raters.
Describe Graphic Rating Scale
Use of graphic rating scale requires the rater to indicate on a Likert-type scale the ratee’s level of performance on one or several dimensions. EX: a rater might rate an employee’s communication skills on a 5-point scale that ranges from excellent to poor. Graphic rating scales are highly susceptible to rater biases, but their accuracy is improved when points on the scale are anchored with descriptions of specific job behaviors.
Describe Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)
When developing BARS, supervisors or others familiar with the job (1) identify several independent dimensions of job behavior (e.g., job knowledge, motivation, interpersonal relationships); (2) identify several behavioral anchors (critical incidents) for each dimension; and (3) order and number the behavioral anchors within each dimension from least to most positive or desirable. When using BARS, the rater chooses the one behavior for each dimension that best describes the employee. Because BARS employs critical incidents, it can be easily used to provide employees with specific feedback about their job performance, and increases inter-rater reliability and reduces rater biases. The primary disadvantage of BARS is the amount of time required to develop the scale. Also, behavior anchors usually describe what the rater expects the employee to do (e.g., “could be expected to continue working on a problem until a solution is found”) and therefore do not necessarily indicate what behavior the rater has actually observed
What are the 3 Rater Biases that limit the accuracy of subjective measures of job performance (especially absolute techniques)?
- Leniency/Strictness Bias-occurs when rater tends to avoid middle range of rating scale and INSTEAD rates ALL employees either HIGH(leniency) or LOW(strictness) on ALL DIMENSIONS of Job Performance
- Central Tendency Bias-when a rater’s consistent use of only MIDDLE range of rating scale
- Halo Bias (error)-when a rater’s evaluation of an employee on one dimension of job performance affects his/her evaluation of that employee on other unrelated dimensions or when the rater’s general impression of an employee influences how the rater rates the employee on all dimensions of job performance. A halo effect can be either “positive” or “negative”
What is the best way to improve rating accuracy?
To provide raters with adequate training, especially training that focuses on identifying and distinguishing between different levels of performance rather than on avoiding rater biases.
EX: Frame-of-reference (FOR) training provides raters with a common conception of the multidimensional nature of the job performance and of what constitutes effective and ineffective performance on each dimension.
-Rater biases can be reduced by having raters rate specific behaviors rather than global behaviors or traits. Behaviors can be defined, for instance, in terms of critical incidents, which are descriptions of specific job behaviors that lead to either successful or unsuccessful job performance. “Gives suggestions to subordinates on how they can improve their performance” and “publicly insults subordinates who make mistakes” are examples of critical incidents. Critical incidents are incorporated into several subjective measures including critical incident technique and BARS.
