Lecture 7: Employee evaluation

Question 1

Why performance appraisal?

Answer 1

• Training and feedback
• Determining salary increase
• Making promotion decisions
• Making termination decisions
• Conducting personnel research

Question 2

Purpose of appraisal

Answer 2

• Feedback and training (65%)
• Personnel decisions (86% raises, 45% promotions, 30% termination decisions)
• Research
• Legal or certification reasons

Question 3

Supervisors

Answer 3

Appraisal is traditionally done by supervisors–> problematic because they just see results, not the behaviour

Question 4

Subordinate-or upward feedback

Answer 4

Can be relevant–> can be problematic because subordinates may fear repercussions from providing negative feedback

Question 5

Customer feedback

Answer 5

Looking at the amount of complaints or compliments that an employee has received

Question 6

Self-evaluation

Answer 6

Tend to be overinflating their performance, so problematic

Question 7

Appraisal methods

Answer 7

• Trait focus (can feel as personal attack)
• Task focus
• Competency focus
• Goal focus
• Contextual focus (“good soldier” –> get along with peers and good organizational citizen)

Question 8

Use of employee comparison

Answer 8

• Rank order; on performance for each relevant dimension (easy with few employees)
• Paired comparison; compare each possible pair of employees and choose which one of the pair is better (easy with few employees)
• Forced distribution method; a predetermined percentage of employees are placed in each of the 5 categories (easy in large organisations)

Question 9

Objective measures

Answer 9

• Quantitiy of work; counting number of relevant job behaviours
• Quality of work; measured in terms of errors that people make
• Attendance; how often a person is present vs. absent
• Safety; counting the amount of accidents

Question 10

When evaluating performance, we tend to remember…..

Answer 10

• First impressions
• Recent behaviours
• Unusual behaviours
• Extreme behaviours
• Behaviour that is consistent with our opinion

Question 11

When evaluating performance, we tend to forget….

Answer 11

• Details
• The source of the information

Question 12

Common rating errors

Answer 12

• Halo or Horns: when a rater allows an attribute or an oral impression to affect the overall rating of this person
• Range restriction/ distribution errors
• Location errors

Question 13

Range restriction/distribution errors

Answer 13

• Leniency; rate every employee on the upper end of the scale
• Strictness; rate every employee on the low end of the scale
• Central tendency; rate every employee in the middle of the scale

Question 14

Proximity error (location errors)

Answer 14

When a rating made on one dimension affects the rating that immediately follows that dimension. Tendency to provide a similar rating

Question 15

Algorithmic management

Answer 15

• Direction: algorithmic systems can determine which tasks should be performed in what order, time period and with which degree of accuracy
• Evaluation: algorithmic management will correct mistakes, assess performance and identify those who are not performing adequately
• Discipline: algorithmic management is going to distribute punishment and reward and to elicit cooperation and enforce compliance