PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
Introduction The performance appraisal is a recent and modern terminology used in every
organization to revive the work performance of their employees. It is also otherwise known as
behavioral assessment, employee evaluation, personnel review etc. the term performance
appraisal or evaluation is most widely used.
Definition Performance appraisal is the regular evaluation of the performance of employees
and to recognize the capability of a person for the purpose of promoting their career growth
and development.
Objective Of Performance Appraisal
to assess the capabilities and limitations of employees
to place right people in right kind of job based on their abilities to perform
to document and maintain the record of salaries ,privileges, promotion, problem etc
to review the progress of the employees and plan for developmental programme
to provide feedback to the employees about their performance
Benefits Of Performance Appraisal
assessed systematic and objective methods of performance of employee
developed trustworthy relationship between head of the department and the
faculty
to maintain document and the record of salaries, privileges,
promotions ,problems etc.
To motivate the employee to perform as per the standards
To provide feedback to the employees about their performance
Criteria Of Performance Appraisal
Objective criteria
The quality or amount of production, length of service, amount of the required training, work
sample tests etc
Subjective criteria
The rating of employee proficiency by his supervisor, peers and subordinates, upward
communication of idea:, degree of knowledge about corporate goal, contribution to socio cultural
values etc
Purpose of Performance Appraisal
It provides an important incentive to all the employees
It can be taken as a basis for job change or promotion
By recognizing the strengths and weakness of an employee
It mostly provides a rational basis for wages, bonuses, payment of piece work etc.
Main purpose of performance appraisal include:-
Judgmental purpose:-
Determining salary standards and salary increases
Selecting qualified individuals for promotion transfers, denoting and terminating
employee due to unsatisfactory performance
Developmental purpose:-
They are useful in identifying talents in the organization
They determine training and development needs of individuals or groups
They improve IPR
They provide employee recognition
They provide team building
They give employee feedback
Method of Performance Appraisal
Also know as Tool of Performance Appraisal
Critical incident report:-
It is the method of identify and describing the performance of the employee during any specific
event or incident
Checklist method:-
Checklist are prepared including negative and positive aspect of employee performance in the
form of statements and usually the superior or HR managers use the checklist for assessment
Rating scale:-
It is method of assessing performance quality and quantity of work, dependability, punctuality,
attitude and cooperation and team work are usually included.
A bipolar scale with yes/no options, or a 3 point scale with option as below expectation, meet
expectations, above expectations or a 5 point scale with option as unsatisfactory , fair
satisfactory, good and outstanding is used.
Descriptive method;-
It is a no quantitative method in which a narrative description of the employee’s performance is
written by the evaluation person. it given the freedom to openly express their observations and
opinions.
Behavioral method:
the performance of the employees are rated on scale which has statements of the behaviors and
psychomotor abilities of the employees in completing the task given.
Ranking method:-
Employees are ranked based on their performance and they are compared with other by using
this ranking list.
Management by objective:-
A list of objective to be achieved is set and the employee are assessed based upon their
contribution to achieve the objectives.
The objectives must be clear, appropriate, measurable ,practical to be achieve and time bound.
The advantage of method is that the employee know the objective on which their performance is
evaluated and they may use all their talent and strength to achieve the objectives
360 degree evaluation
It is a more comprehensive method as it involves five types of assessment self appraisal,
evaluation by superior, evaluation by subordinates ,evaluation by peer and evaluation by
students.
PROCEDURE FOR PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
Developing standards;-
The expected performance of the employees need to be developed as standards . the standards
must be based on the organizational objectives. The standards will be used for measuring and
comparing the performance of the employees
Communication :
-the standard must be communicated to the employees .the standard is also informed to all the
evaluators and their opinion to modify revise the standards are taken into consideration
Measurement :-
The quantity and quality of work is assessed in this phase.it is never ending process and each
employee performance is monitored through out the year
Comparison:-
The performance of the individual employee is compared with the expected standards of
performance. The deviation may be positive where an employee performs beyond expectations
or less than the expectations.
Feedback and discussion with the employee:-
The employees are given feedback about their performance appraisal findings and the
possibilities to improve their performance are discussed with them to improve their future
performance
Decision :-
In the process of appraisal, in the final step the decisions are taken regarding the way to help the
employee to perform to their level best
ERRORS AND PROBLEMS IN PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL:-
Central tendency. Clustering everyone in the middle performance categories to avoid
extremes of good or bad performance; it’s easy, but it’s wrong. This isn’t fair to
employees who are really making an effort, and it can be demoralizing.
Favoritism. Overlooking the flaws of favored or “nice” employees, especially those
whom everyone likes.
Grouping. Excusing below-standard performance because it is widespread; “Everyone
does it.”
Guilt by association. Rating someone on the basis of the company they keep, rather than
on the work they do.
The halo effect. Letting one positive work factor you like affect your overall assessment
of performance.
Holding a grudge. A dangerous luxury that may result in your ending up in court. Never
try to make employees pay for past behavior.
The horns effect. The opposite of the halo effect—letting one negative work factor or
behavior you dislike color your opinion of other factors.
Bias. Allowing your bias to influence the rating. Bias can come from attitudes and
opinions about race, national origin, sex, religion, age, veterans’ status, disability, hair
color, weight, height, intelligence, etc
Recency. Rating only recent performance, good or bad. Data should be representative of
the entire review period. If you’re not keeping good notes, you may not remember the
whole period. Armstrong noted that “you want to make sure, again, that you’re keeping
records so that you can adequately describe performance over an entire performance
period.”
The sunflower effect. Rating everyone high, regardless of performance, to make yourself
look good or to be able to give more compensation
Conclusion:-Performance Appraisals is not only an evaluation process of a person’s performance with
reward / punishments as an outcome of it. Rather, its intent is to align and improve the performance of
an individual to meet the overall organizational goal.A good Performance Appraisal should
1. Serve as holistic measurement system -impartial & impersonal and can be used across
the organization
2. It should provide a way to create an effective individual development plan, completely
tailored to individual needs
