Ch. 7 Performance Management Flashcards
Performance management (PM)
a continuous process of identifying, measuring, and developing the performance of individuals and teams
Aligns performance of employees with strategic goals for the organization
Performance appraisal
- One piece of performance management
- Formal evaluations of an individual’s performance that occur periodically within organizations
The Performance Management Process
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Six Purposes
Strategic – Maximize employee contribution to the goals of organization
Administrative – Making salary adjustments, promotions, and terminations
Communication – Inform employees of expectations and their performance
Developmental – Improve performance of employees via constructive feedback and training opportunities
Organizational Maintenance – Succession planning and assessing the value of training programs
Documentation – Use performance appraisal ratings for criterion validity studies and to provide paper trail for firing
Performance Appraisal and the Law
- Federal law on fair employment practices also pertains to performance appraisal
- Charges of discrimination may be brought under Title VII
Litigation can also result from - Negligence – breach of duty to conduct appraisals with due care
- Defamation – disclosure of untrue BAD performance information that damages reputation of employee
- Misrepresentation – disclosure of untrue favorable performance information that presents a risk of harm to prospective employees or third parties
Serial position errors
- Primacy vs. recency effect
Raters are more likely to recall initial information about a person and what happened most recently (leaving out the middle)
Contrast error
- After rating a star employee, rater might rate the next person lower than they otherwise would have
- Comparisons against others vs. against set standards
Halo errors
- Halo vs. horn effect
- Liking or disliking a person could color the rater’s rating of them
Leniency errors
- Positive vs. negative leniency
- Tendency toward being a harsh or easy grader is stable within a person
Central-tendency error
Avoidance of extreme ratings
Absence of errors does not equal accuracy
Someone might deserve all top ratings, but a rater avoids to not look too lenient or to give person “room to improve”
Rating Scales
Graphic Rating Scales: 5-7 point scale
Employee Comparison Methods
Behavioral Checklists and Scales
Employee Comparison Methods
- Rank Order
High to Low - Paired Comparison
Each employee compared with every other employee
Best used with small samples - Forced Distribution
5- 7 categories (normal distribution assumption)
Employees must be distributed across all categories
Best used with large samples
Top-grading (“rank and yank”)
Behavioral Checklists and Scales
- Critical Incidents
Record of good and poor performance behaviors
Not usually quantified - Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)
Combines behavioral incident and rating scale method - How do you know when your ratings are valid?
Compare them to objective performance (production, sales)?
How do you know that objective is representing “true” contribution?
Rater error training
- Taught to make fewer errors
- Taught about serial, leniency, halo, etc.
- Does not necessarily result in increased accuracy
Frame-of-reference training
- Calibrates raters, showing them what to look for
- Gives raters a description of what to look for as they make each rating
- Particularly promising
