Behavioral Observation Scales

 In the behavioral observation scale (BOS) approach

to performance appraisal, employees are also
evaluated in terms of critical incidents of behavior on
the job.

The ratings are assigned on a 5 point scale as the

one shown here.

Never Seldom Sometimes Generally Always

1 2 3 4 5
Behavioral Observation Scales
 The evaluation yields a total score for each
employee determined by adding the scores or
ratings for each critical incident. The behavioral
incidents are developed in the same way as in
the BARS approach, through their identification
by supervisors or other experts on the job.

 Like BARS, the BOS scales are clearly related

to the behaviors for successful performance on
the job.
Management by Objectives
 Management by Objectives (MBO) involves agreement between
employees and supervisors on goals to be achieved in a certain
period of time.
 The MBO technique not only provides a measure of
performance, it also challenges employees to increase their
productivity in the future. MBO consist of two phases:
 GOAL SETTING PHASE – employees meet individually with
supervisor to determine the goals they will strive for during the
period before the next appraisal, usually one yr. The goals must be
realistic, specific, and as objective as possible.
 PERFORMANCE REVIEW – employees and supervisors meet to
discuss and evaluate how effectively the goals were met. The
results are based on actual results, not on general traits such as
“cooperative” or “initiative”.
SOURCES OF ERROR IN PERFORMANCE
APPRAISAL
Performance appraisal remains basically a
subjective procedure.
No matter how much control is exerted
over rating or ranking procedures, the
process still involves one human being
judging, assessing, or estimating the
characteristics or performance of another.
All of us tend to judge people and things in
our life in terms of our own preferences or
fears.
Sources Of Error In Performance Appraisal

Some common sources of error that can

distort performance appraisal include the:
 Halo Effect
 Constant Bias
 Most Recent – Performance Error
 Inadequate – Information Error
 Average – Rating Error and
 Attribution Error
 Halo Effect
 The halo effect involves the familiar tendency to
judge all aspects of a person’s behavior on the
basis of a single attribute or characteristic.
 One method of attempting to control the halo
effect is to have more than one person rate a
worker on the assumption that the biases and
prejudices of different raters will tend to cancel
each other out.
 Another way of counteracting the halo effect is
to have supervisors rate all subordinates on one
trait or characteristics at a time instead of rating
each person on all traits at the same time.
 Constant or Systematic Bias
 As a source of performance appraisal error
has its basis in the standards or criteria used by
the raters.
 The systematic biasing error means that a
top rating given by one supervisor may not be
equivalent to a top rating given by another
supervisor.
 The method is unfair to a group of
outstanding workers who all happen to be
employed in the same unit and, consequently,
are evaluated together.
 Most Recent – Performance Error

 Performance appraisals are usually made

periodically, every 6 or 12 month.
 As a result, there is an understandable
tendency to base the rating on the most
recent behavior of the workers, not taking into
account or being able to remember their
performance throughout the period since the
last appraisal.
 Inadequate – Information Error

 When it is time for performance

appraisal, supervisors are required to rate
employees whether or not they know
enough about them to do so fairly. And
admitting these to their superior would
be construed to man personal failing. As a
result , the supervisor tend to rate the
employees through inadequate data.
 Average – Rating Error
 Some people when placed in the position of
judging others are reluctant to give extreme scores
in either direction – very good or very poor. The
result is the tendency to be lenient, to assign
average ratings to all workers.
 The range of abilities indicated is restricted and the
ratings so close together that is becomes difficult
to distinguish between good and poor workers.
 This error in performance appraisal does not result
in a true reflection of the range of difference
among the workers, and such ratings provide no
useful information to the company or the
employees.
 Attribution Error
 The concept of attribution originated in the area
of social psychology where it was found to have
an effect on the way in which we form
impressions of the other people.
 These beliefs about why an employee behaves in
a particular way can affect the rating or
evaluation the supervisor gives.
 Psychological research on attributes shows that a
person’s behavior can be attributes to external
factor such as luck or the difficulty of the task of
to internal factors such as a person’s ability and
effort. The attribution error can be reduced by
having the supervisors spend time performing
the job being evaluated
IMPROVING PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
The fact that performance appraisal can be
so easily biased by the characteristics of the
raters and the rates has no reason to
abandon hope of achieving objective
evaluation.
Two techniques are being used in industry
today to attempt to reduce error and
increase accuracy. These involves better
training for raters and providing feedback to
raters on the quality of their evaluation.
 Training of Raters
 Training can involve two steps:
1. Creating an awareness that abilities and skills are usually
distributed in accordance with the normal curve so that it is
perfectly acceptable to find large differences among a
group of workers.
2. Developing the ability to define appropriate criteria for the
behaviors being evaluated, a standard or average
performance against which employees may be compared.
 Training of supervisors not only influence the ratings they
give, but also their subordinates’ reactions to the
evaluation process.
 Observing and practicing proper interview procedures can
lead to a greater willingness to undertake performance
appraisals promptly and well.
 Providing Feedback To Raters

 The second approach to improving performance

appraisal involves providing feedback to
managers about the quality of the ratings they
have given, a technique that is less expensive and
easier to conduct than a rater training program.
 Experiments with feedback to raters suggest that
it can help make raters aware of their systematic
biases, either favorable or unfavorable toward
specific groups of employees.
PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL OF EXECUTIVE
The performance appraisal of executive
personnel presents problems not faced in the
assessment of lower level workers.
One difficulty in assessing the performance of
executives is the diversity of responsibilities,
task, and skills found among them.
 The Assessment Center Technique
 Assessment center are devices that are used similarly as a
means of performance appraisal.
 Managers participate in a variety of simulated task such as
management games, group problem solving, leaderless
discussion group, the in-basket test, and interviews. The staff
of the assessment center evaluates each person on how well
these tasks are performed, and the evaluation is sent to the
person’s superior.
 Assessment centers do not assess actual behavior on the job
but rather in a variety of activities that are similar to those
encountered on the job.
 Evaluation by Superiors
 The most frequently used means of executive
appraisal is assessment by the person’s superior
in the organization.
 In actuality, an assessment by the immediate
superior is often supplemented by the judgments
of higher level superiors. The latter step of
appraisal presents a problem.
 It is rare for an executive evaluation to be carried
out using a standardized rating sheet. Usually, the
executive’s superior writes a description of the
individual’s level of the job performance.
 Peer Rating
 Peer rating, developed during World War 2 (known as buddy
rating) requires that all executive or managers at the same
level rate or assess each other in terms of general ability to
perform the job or on specific traits or characteristics.
 There is the potential for bias whenever a person is asked to
express judgments on colleagues who may be close friends or
intense rivals for the next promotion
 Self-evaluation
 An unusual approach to executive evaluation is to
ask individuals to assess their own performance
and abilities.
 The usual procedure is for executives and their
superior to establish mutually a set of objectives
such as new skills to be developed or weakness
on which to improve.
 Self-ratings also tend to stress different aspects of
job performance than ratings given by superiors.
 Whereas ratings by superiors stress initiative and
job skill, self-ratings focus more on interpersonal
skills.
 Combined Ratings

 Because ratings by superiors, colleagues, and the

executives themselves are relatively easy to
obtain, it seems logical to combine the three
viewpoints on each person into one overall
appraisal. This may also reduce potential bias
from self-ratings and peer ratings.
 The combined approach to executive assessment
promises to provide useful information to both
the organization and the individual.
 THE POST APPRAISAL INTERVIEW

 Performance appraisal serves two purpose-

supplying information to management for personnel
decisions ad diagnosing strengths and weakness of
employees to enable them to improve their job
performance and to provide them with sufficient
motivation for doing so.
 In most cases, a person-self-appraisal will not be
matched by his or her superior’s appraisal. There will
be a discrepancy between how well employees think
they are doing their job and how well their superiors
think they doing it.
THE POST APPRAISAL INTERVIEW
 Another purpose of the post appraisal interview
is to reward or praise workers for better than
average job performance in the hope that such
praise will spur them to even more ideal than
real.
 Criticizing a subordinate must be undertaken
with the utmost tact and understanding. To most
of us, the job we perform is vital, not only in
terms of financial security but also in
psychological terms a job provides.
 Criticizing the way we do our jobs goes much
deeper than just criticizing out work behavior.
 It can influence our whole self image.
THE POST APPRAISAL INTERVIEW
Post appraisal interviews, improperly
conducted, can easily turn workers and
supervisors into adversaries.
A SAMPLE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
PROGRAM
The top management of a division of the
General Electric Corporation, thought so
poorly of the program that no more than half
of them used it.
Employees criticized it as inaccurate,
unreliable, and waste of time.
A SAMPLE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL PROGRAM
 Two major complaints were identified.
1. Appraisal were undertaken only once a year and were
based on traits rather than on actual behavior on the job.
2. Employees had little opportunity to participate in the
appraisal process.
 The new appraisal system they proposed offers a
continuing, ongoing process of planning and reviewing the
work of the entire division. The program has the following
goals:
1. All work is planned jointly by employees and supervisors.
Specific goals and objectives, and the best ways of meeting
them, are mutually determined, providing employees
ample opportunity to participate in the appraisal process.
A SAMPLE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL PROGRAM
2. Formal appraisals are given annually, but
interim evaluations and coaching are provided
as need. The focus in these session is on
monitoring employees progress towards
achieving goals and on devising changes in
behavior where needed.
3. In the annual formal appraisals, employees and
managers discuss what has been accomplished
and how it was done.
 Overall, perhaps the best explanation for the
acceptance of this performance appraisal
system is that it was designed not solely to
judge employees but to help them.
 PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL: A POOR RATING?
 It is possible to develop effective and worthwhile
programs of performance that will benefit both
employees and management.
 Most organizations evaluate their workers by
traditional methods that, as well we have seen, have
disadvantages and limited success. As a result both
parties to the appraisal may view it with suspicion,
and the gap between worker and supervisor often
widens.
 Performance appraisals may be one of the least
popular program that are currently in use in the
world of work.
1. Define the following terms as used in this chapter:
a. Production Jobs
b. Non-production jobs
c. Rater Training
d. Feed Back
e. BARS
f. BOS
g. MBO
2. Why should performance be appraised?
3. Explain diff. technique of performance appraisal.
4. Are performance appraisal always accurate? Justify your
answer.
5. How are executives appraised? Discuss briefly.
6. What is the significance of the post appraisal interview?
7. Discuss to improve performance appraisal.