Ch. 6 Evaluating Employee Performance

Question 1

Define: Performance Appraisal

Answer 1

Means of assessing worker performance in comparison to company’s established standards and should be tied directly to performance criteria.

Question 2

Performance Appraisal Uses…

Answer 2

1. Personnel decisions (promotion, firing, transfer)
2. Employee development and feedback
3. Criteria for research (e.g., validation of tests)
4. Documentation for legal action
5. Training

Question 3

Objective Methods of performance appraisals

Answer 3

Measures of job performance that are easily quantified

Counts of behaviors or outcomes of behaviors

Question 4

4 Advantages of Objective Methods

Answer 4

1. Consistent standards within jobs
2. Not biased by judgment
3. Easily quantified
4. Face validity‑bottom line oriented

Question 5

5 Disadvantages of Objective Methods

Answer 5

1. Not always applicable (teacher)
2. Performance not always under individual’s control
3. Too simplistic
4. Time consuming
5. Potentially costly

Question 6

Advantages of Subjective Methods

Answer 6

1. Easy to use
2. Inexpensive
3. Can assess variables that objective methods can not (e.g., motivation, team spirit)

Question 7

Disadvantages of Subjective Methods

Answer 7

1. Potentially poor reliability between raters
2. Prone to rater bias
3. Rating errors: Leniency, Halo, etc.
4. Supervisor subversion of system–leniency as a strategy

Question 8

Sources of Performance Ratings

Answer 8

Supervisors
Self appraisals
Peers
Subordinate
Customers
360 feedback

Question 9

Comparative Methods

Answer 9

Rank Order
Paired Comparison
Forced Distribution

Question 10

Individual Methods

Answer 10

Checklist
Narratives
Graphic rating scales 
Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS)
Behavioral observation scales (BOS)

Question 11

Common Rating Errors

Answer 11

Leniency or Severity - Halo or Horns
Primacy or Recency
Causal attribution - Actor-observer bias
Personal biases

Question 12

Effective Performance Appraisal Review Interviews

Answer 12

Employee input prior to the meeting
High level of employee participation
Helpful supervisor attitude
Focus on behaviors rather than traits
Identification of solutions to problems
Mutual setting of specific goals
Consistent application of standards
Rater is familiar with the employee’s work

Question 13

Effective and Legal Performance Appraisal Systems….

Answer 13

Are job-related and based on a job analysis
Are properly administered
Provide specific feedback
Use appropriate raters

Question 14

Criterion Relevance

Answer 14

The extent to which the means of appraising performance is pertinent to job success

Question 15

Criterion Contamination

Answer 15

The extent to which performance appraisals contain elements that detract from the accurate assessment of job effectiveness

Question 16

Criterion Deficiency

Answer 16

The degree to which a criterion falls short of measuring job performance

Question 17

Criterion Usefulness

Answer 17

The extent to which a performance criterion is usable in appraising a particular job

Question 18

Comparative Methods

Answer 18

performance appraisal methods involving comparisons of one worker’s performance against that of other workers

Question 19

Rankings

Answer 19

Performance appraisal methods involving the ranking of supervisees from best to worst

Question 20

Paired Comparison

Answer 20

Performance appraisal method in which the rater compares each worker with every other worker in the group and then decides who is the better performer

Question 21

Forced Distributions

Answer 21

Assigning workers to established categories of poor to good performance with fixed limitations on how many employees can be assigned to each category

Question 22

Individual Methods

Answer 22

Performance appraisal methods that evaluate an employee by himself or herself, without explicit reference to other workers

Question 23

Graphic Rating Scales

Answer 23

Performance appraisal methods using a predetermined scale to rate the worker on important job dimensions

Question 24

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)

Answer 24

Performance appraisal technique using rating scales with labels reflecting examples of poor, average, and good behavioral incidents

Question 25

Behavioral Observation Scales (BOS)

Answer 25

Performance appraisal methods that require appraiser to recall how often a worker has been observed performing key work behaviors

Question 26

Checklists

Answer 26

Performance appraisal methods using a series of statements about job performance

Question 27

Narratives

Answer 27

Open-ended written accounts of a worker’s performance used in performance appraisals

Question 28

Leniency Errors

Answer 28

The tendency to give all workers very positive performance appraisals

Question 29

Severity Errors

Answer 29

The tendency to give all workers very negative performance appraisals

Question 30

Central Tendency Error

Answer 30

The tendency to give all workers the midpoint rating in performance appraisals

Question 31

Halo Effect

Answer 31

An overall positive evaluation of a worker based on one known positive characteristic or action

Question 32

Rusty Halo (Horns effect)

Answer 32

Overall negative performance appraisal is made on the basis of one instance of failure or one negative characteristic

Question 33

Recency Effect

Answer 33

The tendency to give greater weight to recent performance and lesser weight to earlier performance

Question 34

Causal Attribution

Answer 34

The process by which people assign cause to events or behaviors

Question 35

Two attributional biases

Answer 35

1. The tendency for appraiser to give more extreme appraisal if they believe that the cause of a worker’s performance is rooted in effort rather than ability
2. Actor-Observer Bias - the tendency for observers to over attribute cause to characteristic of the actor and the tendency for the actor to over attribute cause to situational characteristics