Amity School of Business

Critical Incident Technique

Example:
– July 20 - Sales clerk patiently attended to the
customers complaint. He is polite, prompt,
enthusiastic in solving the customers’ problem
– July 20 - The sales assistant stayed 45 minutes
beyond his break during the busiest part of the day.
He failed to answer store manager’s call thrice. He
is lazy, negligent, stubborn and uninterested in work
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 Amity School of Business
Critical Incident Technique

– Limitation of this technique are:

• Negative incidents may be more noticeable than positive
incidents.
• Supervisors have a tendency to unload a series of complaints
about incidents.
• Results in very close supervision which may not be liked by
the employee.
• The recording of incidents may be a chore for the manager
concerned who may be too busy or forget to do it.

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 Critical Incident method
Amity School of Business

Ex: A fire, sudden breakdown, accident

Workers Reaction scale

A Informed the supervisor immediately 5

B Become anxious on loss of output 4
C Tried to repair the machine 3
D Complained for poor maintenance 2
E Was happy to forced test 1

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Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale

(BARS) Process
1) Generate critical incidents (examples of good and poor job
performance)
2) Place Critical Incidents Into performance dimensions (e.g.,
Responsibility, Initiative, Safety)
3) Retranslation Step (do step # 2 again with a separate group of job
experts. Discard incidents where disagreement exists as to which
dimension in which they belong)
4) Calculate the mean and standard deviation of each critical incident
(discard those with a large standard deviation)
5) Place critical incidents on a vertical scale
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Should have following FeaturesAmity School of Business

• Areas of performance has to evaluated

• Scales are anchored by description of
actual job performance
• All dimensions of performance to be
evaluated are based on observable
behaviors
• Raters more likely committed to final
product
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BARS (Pros and Cons)

• Process involves various employees (increases
the likelihood of usage)

• Job specificity (different BARS need to be

developed for each position)

• Not any better at reducing common rating scale

errors (e.g., leniency, halo)

• Time consuming 6
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• FIELD REVIEW ( fig. 10.9)

In this method, a senior member of the HR
department or a training officer discusses
and interviews the supervisors to evaluate
and rate their respective subordinates. A
major drawback of this method is that it is
a very time consuming method. But this
method helps to reduce the superiors’
personal bias.

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 Confidential ReportAmity School of Business

Descriptive report
– Prepared at the end of the year

– Prepared by the employee’s immediate supervisor

– The report highlights the strengths and

weaknesses of employees
– Prepared in Government organizations

– Does not offer any feedback to the employee

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 Essay EvaluationAmity School of Business

– The rater is asked to express the strong as well as

weak points of employee’s behavior
– The rater considers the employee’s :
• Job knowledge and potential
• Understanding of company’s programs, policies,
objectives etc
• Relation with co-workers and supervisors
• Planning, organizing and controlling ability
• Attitude and perception

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 Essay EvaluationAmity School of Business

• This method has the following limitations:

• Highly subjective
• Supervisor may write biased essay
• Difficult to find effective writers
• A busy appraiser may write the essay hurriedly
without assessing properly the actual performance of
the worker
• If the appraiser takes a long time it becomes
uneconomical from the view point of the firm

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Ranking and comparative methods

• STRAIGHT RANKING METHOD
This is one of the oldest and simplest techniques of
performance appraisal. In this method, the appraiser
ranks the employees from the best to the poorest on the
basis of their overall performance. It is quite useful for a
comparative evaluation.
• PAIRED COMPARISON
A better technique of comparison than the straight
ranking method, this method compares each employee
with all others in the group, one at a time. After all the
comparisons on the basis of the overall comparisons, the
employees are given the final rankings.

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 Ranking employees by paired comparison Method
Amity School of Business

For the Trait “Quality of For the Trait “Creativity”

work”
Person rated Person rated
As compared to A B C As compared to A B C

A - + +
A + - + + - +
+ - +

- B + - +
B - ++ -- - + -

+ -- ++ + - -
C + C + + -
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 Amity School of Business

FUTURE-ORIENTED METHODS
• Given by Peter F. Drucker in 1954.
• Reflects a management philosophy which values and utilises
employee contributions.
• Steps in MBO:
1. Establish the goals each subordinate is to attain( sometimes
collectively set by superiors and subordinates)
2. Setting the performance standards for the subordinates in
specified time period.
3. Actual level of goal attainment is compared with the goals agreed
upon. ( causes are explored to assess the training needs)
4. Establishing new goals specifically with the subordinates who
easily attained previously set goals. New strategies are also
explored. Then, the whole step is repeated.

MBO ( exhibit 10.5)

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Management by Objectives
Amity(MBO)
School of Business

– MBO emphasizes collectively set goals that are

tangible, verifiable, and measurable

– Focuses attention on goals rather than on methods

– Concentrates on Key Result Areas (KRA)

– Systematic and rational technique that allows

management to attain maximum results from

available resources by focusing on achievable goals

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 Key Elements Of MBO
Amity School of Business

• Arranging organizational goals in a means-ends

chain
• Engaging in joint goal setting
– This process has the following steps:
» Identify KRAs
» Define expected results
» Assign specific responsibilities to employees
» Define authority and responsibility relationship
• Conducting periodic progress review
• Conducting annual performance review
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 Amity School of Business

Psychological appraisal
• Large organisations employ full-time
industrial psychologists. They assess an
individual’s future potential.
• Consists of:
• In-depth interviews,
• Psychological tests,
• Discussions with supervisors,
• Review of other evaluations.
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 Amity School of Business

• The psychologist then writes an evaluation of the

employee’s intellectual, emotional, motivational
and other related characteristics that suggest
individual potential and may predict future
performance.
• The evaluation may be a specific job opening for
which the person is being considered, or it may
be a global assessment of his or her future
potential.
• Placement and development decisions may be
made to shape the person’s career.
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 Amity School of Business

Assessment centres (Exhibit 10.6)

• First developed in US and UK in 1943.
• It is a central location where managers may come
together to have their participation in job-related
exercises evaluated by trained observers.
• The principal idea is to evaluate managers over a period
of time(1-3 days), by observing their behaviour across a
series of select exercises or work samples.
• Assesses are requested to participate in in-basket
exercises, work groups( without leaders), computer
simulations, role playing, etc. which require the same
attributes for successful performance, as in the actual
job.
• Self-appraisal and peer evaluation are also noted for
final rating. 18
 Amity School of Business

• The characteristics normally assessed are:

1. assertiveness,
2. Persuasive ability,
3. Communication skills,
4. Planning and organisational ability,
5. Self-confidence,
6. Stress management,
7. Energy levels,
8. Emotional stability,
9. Creativity,etc.

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 Amity School of Business

3600
SUPERIOR
SUPERIOR
Appraisal
PEERS
PEERS CUSTOMERS
CUSTOMERS

TEAM
TEAM

SELF
SELF

SUBORDINATES
SUBORDINATES
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 Amity School of Business

PRE-REQUISITES FOR 3600 APPRAISAL

• Top management support
• Some prior experimentation and positive
experiences
• Clear organizational philosophy and policy
- Purpose, phases, components,
implementation plan, etc.
• Design team that designs and monitors it
• Communication plan.

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 Amity School of Business

BENEFITS OF 3600 SYSTEMS

• More objective
• Suits flat structures, multiple reporting,
matrix structures and modern organizations
• Enables better planning of performance
• Provides opportunity to improve quality of
inputs and services to internal customers
• Points out supervisory biases
• Provides scope to get new ideas
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BENEFITS OF 3600 SYSTEMS (contd.)

• More authentic data for decisions
• Developmental tool
• Team building tool
• More involving and participative
• Suits new organizational cultures

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