Theme 1-1 Basic Concepts In Performance Management And Appraisal Flashcards
What are the performance expectations and measures based on organisational and programme goals?
Key results expected
Key competencies expected
Training needs and opportunities
Name and discuss the three types of performance criteria
Trait-based criteria - focus on the personal characteristics of an employee eg. Loyalty, dependability, creativity and communication skills. Focus on what person is and not what he or she does or accomplishes on the job.
Behaviour-based criteria - concerned with specific behaviours that lead to job success. Eg. Instead of ranking leadership ability (a trait), rater assess whether an employee exhibits certain behaviours eg. Works well with co-workers.
Results/outcome-based criteria - focus on what was accomplished or produced rather than how it was accomplished or produced.
What are the objectives of performance appraisal?
Evaluative - compensation decisions, staffing decisions and evaluate selection system.
Developmental - performance feedback, direction for future performance and indentify training and development needs.
What is the difference between Performance Appraisal and Performance Management?
Performance appraisal is the process of evaluating how well employees perform their jobs compared to a set of standards, and then communicating that information to employees.
Performance Management is a process significantly affects organisational success by having managers and employees work together to set expectations, review results and reward performance.
What are the possible sources of ineffective performance?
Organisational policies and practices (A)
- ineffective job placement (B)
- insufficient job training (C)
- ineffectual employment practices (D)
- lack of attention to employee needs or concerns (E)
Personal problems (F)
- marital problems (G)
- financial worries (H)
- emotional disorders (depression, guilt, anxiety, fear) (I)
- low work ethic (J)
Job concerns (K)
- unclear or constantly changing work requirements (L)
- boredom with job (M)
- lack of job growth or advancement opportunities (N)
- problems with fellow employees (O)
External factors (P)
- industry decline or extreme competition (Q)
- legal constraints (R)
- conflict between ethical standards and job demands (S)
- union management conflict (T)
What are the steps involved in developing a PA system?
1) Determine performance requirements - administrators determine what skills, outputs and accomplishments will be evaluated during each appraisal. Derived from specific job descriptions or uniform set of employee requirements included in all PAs (U)
2 Choose appropriate appraisal method - several methods may be used; no one method best for all organisations. Manner in which supervisor conducts PA strongly determined by the method. Different appraisal methods may be used for different groups, such as production, sales and administrative employees. (V)
3) Train supervisors - critical step in PA process so they prepare fair and accurate appraisals and effectively communicate the evaluation to the employee. Unfair ratings may result in charges of discrimination, loss of employee morale and productivity, or inaccurate appraisals, which lead to poor compensation or staffing decisions. (W)
4) Discuss methods with employees- prior to appraisal interview, supervisors should discuss with employees the method that will be used. Should specify which areas of performance are evaluated, how often, how evaluation takes place and its significance to the employee. (X)
5) Appraise according to job standards - PA should evaluate employee’s work according to predetermined work requirements. Supervisor’s feelings about employee should not affect the appraisal. Feelings cannot be evaluated; they are only mental contructs and may be biased. By discussing employee’s behaviour that has been observed and documented, the supervisor focuses the appraisal on concrete, actual performance by the employee. (Y)
6) Discuss appraisal with employees - make sure that supervisors discuss appraisal with their employees, allowing employees to discuss areas of agreement or disagreement. Supervisor should emphasise positive work performance - areas employee exceeded expectations - as well as areas that need improvement. (Z)
7) Determine future performance goals - Critical aspect of PA is use of goal setting. How specifically or rigidly these goals are to be pursued is determined by appraisal method used. Even if goals only broadly discussed, setting goals for employee’s future appraisal period is critical because it gives employee direction for continued or improved performance. Leaving discussion employee feels comfortable knowing how past performance has been viewed and what needs to be accomplished to meet future expectations. (AA)
Discuss the legal considerations related to performance appraisals.
1) Written appraisals should be conducted regularly for all employees, not limited to lower level employees.
2) Supervisors and other appraisers should be trained thoroughly in proper appraisal procedures.
3) Appraisers should apply consistent, explicit and objective job-rated standards when preparing PA’s. Work performance, not the individual should be judged. Appraisals of an employee or applicant should be related to the essential functions of the job.
4) an audit system should be established to guard against leniency and other errors to ensure that appraisals are unbiased. Eg. Before PA interview is held with employee, the PA should be reviewed and approved by another manager or reviewer.
5) Problem areas should be identified and documented. If problems not specifically identified, the employee will have a hard time knowing exactly what behaviour to improve.
6) When problems have been identified in assessing substandard, specific goals and timetables should be established for improvement.
7) Employees should be given clear opportunity to respond to negative appraisals. If the employee with substandard performance gives their version of the facts, this may smoke out future claims and will help gain the employee’s involvement in the PA process.
8) Employer should be able to prove that the employee received the PA. Employees who disagree with their ratings may be reluctant to sign the PA form, assuming that their signature indicates agreement. Allowing them to sign and indicate that they were present or present but disagree will still supply the needed proof of receipt.
9) Circulation of appraisals should be restricted to those in management with a need to know.
10) Check past PA’s. If determination for poor work performance is being considered, past PAs should be scrutinised to see if the employee was adequately informed of their performance deficiencies and if the PAs are consistent with the stated reasons for the employee’s dismissal. The employee should also have been given fair opportunity to meet the required standard.
Behavioural/objective methods
Behaviourally anchored rating scales (BARS)
A behavioural approach to performance appraisal that consists of a series of vertical scales, one for each dimension of job performance.
Instead of using broad employee attributes, the points of the rating scale are critical incidents. Evaluative because mathematical totals can be easily related to merit increases and promotion probability. Also more job-related and more developmental than typical rating scales because the items being evaluated are those that are critical to good performance. Disadvantage is the time and effort involved in adapting critical incidents to a rating scale format.
See more advantages p309
Management objectives
A philosophy of management that rates performance on the basis of employee achievement of goals set by mutual agreement of employee and manager.
Goal setting
GS process begins with formation of long-range objectives and cascades through the organisational objectives, departmental goals and finally individual goals. The aspect of participation in goal setting is one of MBO’s major strengths, as there is general agreement that participation in decision making strengthens employee motivation and commitment.
Action planning
Goals specify what is to be achieved, action plans specify how goals are to be achieved. Constitutes road map for accomplishing goals.
Discuss the performance appraisal methods.
1) Category rating methods (AB)
1. 1) Graphic rating scale (AC)
Rates employee on some standard or attribute of work. Traditionally focus on personal traits eg. Friendliness and cooperation,but more recently it has been on behaviours and outcomes eg. Doing it right first time and greets customer. Rating done on 1-3 likert-type scale or 1-5. 1 represent very unsatisfactory and 5 excellent. Can be filled in quikly and require little training. However, these scales are particularly prone to rater errors.
1.2) Non-rating graphic scale (AD)
Usually more valid, because it contains a brief description of each point rather than simply low and high points on the scale.
1.3) Checklist of critical incidents (AE)
Checklists developed of critical beviours related to employee’s performance. Supervisor simply ticks whether employee has performed in a superior manner in any one of the incidents, thus the more ticks an employee receives the better the employee is performing.
It has the same downside as graphic style the words and statements may have different meanings to different rater. The raters cannot readily discern the rating results if weighted checklist is used. Lastly, raters do not assign the weights to the factors.
2) Comparative methods (AF)
Ranking (AG)
rank employees from most effective to least affective. The ranking method is comparative: supervisors judge employees performances in relation to each other instead of against an absolute standard, as in the case of rating scales. Supervisors usually rank employees from most effective to least effective in total job performance.
Advantages: - Fast and easy to complete
- A numerical evaluation given to employees can be directly related to compensation changes or staffing considerations.
- Ranking completely avoids problems of central tendency or leniency
Disadvantages: - Ranking is seldom developmental because employees don’t receive feedback about performance strengths and weaknesses or any future direction.
- Ranking assumes that each department has employees who can be distributed fairly over a range from best to worst.
- When ranking is used there is no common standard of performance by which to compare employees from various departments, since employees in each department are compared only with each other.
Forced distribution (AH)
A performance appraisal method in which ratings of employees’ performance are distributed along a bell-shaped curve.
Advantage eliminates central tendency and leniency biases. Disadvantage is administrators will use forced distribution to compare employees from different departments. Only valid if each department has equal number excellent employees, above average, and so on. That assumption is very difficult to make.
Paired comparison (AI)
A variation of the ranking method of PA in which the performance of each employee is compared with that of every other employee in the particular group.
Advantage is that it is fairly quick and easy to use if few employees are being rated. Raters may prefer paired comparison to ranking or forced distribution, because they compare only two employees at a time rather than all employees to one another.
Disadvantages - time consuming for large number of employees.
- Employees compared with each other on overall performance rather than specific job criteria.
Narrative methods (AJ)
Critical incidents (AK)
Several employees and supervisors compile a list of actual job experiences involving extraordinarily good or bad employee performance. Neither normal procedures nor average work performance is included. Outstandingly good or bad job performances separate the better employees from the average employees and poor from average.
Annual review file or calendar (AL)
Supervisor keep ongoing record of employees’ critical incidents contemporaneously during the period of appraisal. Outstandingly good or bad examples of subordinates’ performance are entered. Employees who have little or no record during the year are doing their work satisfactorily, not performing much above or below job expectations.
Advantages is that it’s very job specific and with specific dates and incidents included in PA, the supervisor is less affected by bias.
Disadvantages - difficulty of keeping an accurate record.
- other interests have much higher priority, and maintaining records for employees is often not given adequate time.
Essay method (AM)
Supervisor writes essay in narrative style, describing employee’s performance, specifying examples of strengths and weaknesses. Minimise supervisory bias and halo effect, because supervisor discuss specific examples of performance.
Disadvantage - time supervisor must spend writing separate essays about each employee can be formidable.
Behavioural/objective methods (AN)
Behaviourally anchored rating scales (BARS) (AO)
A behavioural approach to performance appraisal that consists of a series of vertical scales, one for each dimension of job performance.
Instead of using broad employee attributes, the points of the rating scale are critical incidents. Evaluative because mathematical totals can be easily related to merit increases and promotion probability. Also more job-related and more developmental than typical rating scales because the items being evaluated are those that are critical to good performance. Disadvantage is the time and effort involved in adapting critical incidents to a rating scale format.
A more accurate gauge- people developing BARS know job + requirements better than anyone. Result = good gauge of performance on job.
Clearer standards - critical incidents along the scale help clarify what is meant by extremely good performance, average performance and so forth.
Feedback - critical incidents more useful in providing feedback than simply informing them of their performance rating and not providing specific behaviour examples.
Independent dimensions
Systematically clustering critical incidents into 5 or 6 performance dimensions should help make dimensions more independent from each other. Eg. Rater less likely to give high ratings on all dimensions because he/she scored high in conscientiousness.
Consistency
BARS evaluations seem relatively consistent + reliable in that different raters appraisals of same person tend to be similar.
Management by objectives (AP)
A philosophy of management that rates performance on the basis of employee achievement of goals set by mutual agreement of employee and manager.
Goal setting (AQ)
GS process begins with formation of long-range objectives and cascades through the organisational objectives, departmental goals and finally individual goals. The aspect of participation in goal setting is one of MBO’s major strengths, as there is general agreement that participation in decision making strengthens employee motivation and commitment.
Action planning (AR)
Goals specify what is to be achieved, action plans specify how goals are to be achieved. Constitutes road map for accomplishing goals.
Self control (AS)
A primary assumption of MBO is that employees will accomplish their goals if given management and organisational support. Inherent in this assumption is that those who are being appraised with MBO have fairly high level of motivation, commitment and achievement drive.
Periodic review (AT)
Most MBO systems include a mechanism for periodically measuring progress toward goals. A review process is particularly important to discuss problems that could not be forecast during the goal setting process. In more fortunate situations, exceptional performance may require that goals be adjusted upwards.
Advantages
- both supervisor and employee participate in the process.
- The focus of the appraisal process is on specific goals and not on broad personality traits such as “dependability” or “cooperation.”
- Goals and objectives determined before appraisal period begins, thus gives employee direction and expected level of achievement and can be considered developmental.
Guidelines for MBO p312
