Copyright Paul E.

Spector, All rights reserved, March 15, 2005

 Determination and Documentation of Individual's
Performance
 Should be tied directly to criteria

 USES
◦ Administrative decisions (promotion, firing, transfer)
◦ Employee development and feedback
◦ Documentation for legal action
◦ Training
 Criterion: Standard of judging; a rule or test by which
anything is tried in forming a correct judgment respective
it.

 Single Criterion: Global measure to represent performance

 Multidimensional
◦ Each person gets multiple scores that aren’t combined 
 Theoretical criterion: Conceptual definition of
performance

 Actual criterion: How performance is assessed

 Relevance: Actual assesses the theoretical

 Contamination: Actual measures something other

than the theoretical

 Deficiency: Actual fails to capture the theoretical

 Think about the job of an athlet (high jump),
a gymnast and a customer service staff.
 what could be the actual criteron/ criteria for

winning the competition/ job?

 should actual criteria focus quality or quantity

aspect?
 Counts of behaviors or outcomes of behaviors

 Advantages
 Consistent standards within jobs
 Not biased by judgment
 Easily quantified

 Disadvantages
 Not always applicable (teacher)
 Performance not always under individual's control
 Too simplistic
 Performance unreliable--Dynamic
 Criterion
 People’s judgments about performance

 Trait based graphic rating scale

 Behavior based: Critical incidents
 Mixed Standard Scale
 Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale
 Behavior Observation Scales

 Problems:
 Rating errors: Leniency, Severity, Halo
 Supervisor subversion of system--leniency as a strategy
 Mixed purposes (feedback vs. administrative)
 Negative impact of criticism
 Let's think for 3 minutes!
 Halo errors
 Distributional errors

◦ leniency errors
◦ severity errors
◦ central tendency errors
 Separate purposes
◦ Raises dealt with separately from feedback
 Consistent feedback, everyday
 Limit criticism to one item at a time
 Praise should be contingent
 Supervisors should be coaches
 Appraisal should be criterion related, not personal
 Technology helpful for performance appraisal
  Employee performance management systems
◦ Web-based
◦ Automated—reminds raters when to rate
◦ Reduces paperwork
◦ Provides feedback
  360-degree feedback systems
◦ Ratings provided by different people
 Peers
 Subordinates
 Supervisors
 Self
◦ Big clerical task in large organizations to track/process ratings
◦ Web makes 360s easy and feasible
◦ Consulting firms available to conduct 360s
 Error resistant rating forms 
◦ Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale, BARS
◦ Behavior Observation Scale, BOS
◦ Mixed Standard Scale, MSS
◦ Research does not show these forms to be successful in
eliminating errors

 Rater training
◦ Rater error training: instructs raters in how to avoid errors
 Reduces halo and leniency error
 Less accuracy in some studies
◦ Frame of reference training: Give raters examples of
performance and correct ratings
 Initial research promising in reducing errors (Day & Sulsky, 1995)
 Separate purposes
◦ Raises dealt with separately from feedback
 Consistent feedback, everyday
 Limit criticism to one item at a time
 Praise should be contingent
 Supervisors should be coaches
 Appraisal should be criterion related, not personal
 Technology helpful for performance appraisal
  Employee performance management systems
◦ Web-based
◦ Automated—reminds raters when to rate
◦ Reduces paperwork
◦ Provides feedback
  360-degree feedback systems
◦ Ratings provided by different people
 Peers
 Subordinates
 Supervisors
 Self
◦ Big clerical task in large organizations to track/process ratings
◦ Web makes 360s easy and feasible
◦ Consulting firms available to conduct 360s