Unit-3 Human Resource Management

Performance Appraisal

Disadvantages of Performance Appraisal

1. If the factors being used in the performance appraisal are incorrect or not
relevant, the appraisal will fail to provide any useful or effective data.
2. Sometimes, equal weightage is not given to important factors when performing
an appraisal.
3. Some objective factors are very vague and difficult to gauge like attitude and
initiative. There is no scientific method to measure these factors.
4. Managers are sometimes not qualified enough to correctly assess the employees
and their abilities. Thus, these mistakes can be very detrimental to the growth of
the company.

WHAT IS TO BE APPRAISED?????

• The three most popular sets of criteria are individual task outcomes,
behaviors, and traits

INDIVIDUAL TASK OUTCOMES

• Management should evaluate an employee's task outcomes.

• Using task outcomes, a plant manager could be judged on criteria such as

quantity produced, scrap generated, and cost per unit of production. Similarly, a
salesperson could be assessed on overall sales volume in the territory, increase
in sales, and a number of new accounts established.

BEHAVIORS

• In many cases, it's difficult to identify specific outcomes that can be directly
attributed to an employee's actions. This is particularly true of personnel in
advisory or support positions and individuals whose work assignments are
intrinsically part of a group effort.

• We may readily evaluate the group’s performance but have difficulty

distinguishing clearly the contribution of each group member. In such
instances, it's not unusual for management to evaluate the employee's behavior.

TRAITS

• The weakest set of criteria, yet one that is still widely used by organizations is
individual traits.

• We say they're weaker than either task outcomes or behaviors because they're
farthest removed from the actual performance of the job itself.

• Traits such as having a good attitude, showing confidence, being dependable,

looking busy, or possessing a wealth of experience may or may not be highly
correlated with positive task outcomes.

WHO WILL APPRAISE???

The appraiser may be any person who has thorough knowledge about the job
content, contents to be appraised, standards of contents and who observes the
employee while performing a job. The appraiser should be capable of
determining what is more important and what is relatively less important. He
should prepare reports and make judgments without bias.

SUPERVISORS: Supervisors include superiors of the employee, other

superiors having knowledge about the work of the employee and departmental
head or manager. The general practice is that immediate superiors appraise the
performance, which in turn, is reviewed by the departmental head/manager.
This is because supervisors are responsible for managing their subordinates and
they have the opportunity to observe, direct and control the subordinate
continuously.

PEERS: Peer appraisal may be reliable if the work group is stable over a
reasonably long period of time and performs tasks that require interaction.
SUBORDINATES: The concept of having superiors rated by subordinates is
being used in most organizations today, especially in developed countries.

SELF-APPRAISAL: If individuals understand the objectives they are

expected to achieve and the standards by which they are to be evaluated, they
are to a great extent, in the best position to appraise their own performance.

USERS OF SERVICES OR CUSTOMER: Employees' performance in

service organizations relating to behaviors, promptness, speed in doing the job
and accuracy can be better judged by the customers or users of services.

CONSULTANTS: Sometimes, consultants may be engaged for appraisal

when employees or employers do not trust the supervisory appraisal and
management does not trust the self-appraisal or peer appraisal or subordinate
appraisal.

In this situation, consultants are trained and they observe the employee at work
for sufficiently long periods for the purpose of appraisal.

WHEN TO APPRAISE????

Systematic appraisals are conducted on a regular basis, say, for example, every
six months or annually.

Informal appraisals are conducted whenever the supervisor or personnel

managers feel it is necessary.