This document discusses employee performance appraisals and provides resources on the topic. It describes common biases that can occur in performance appraisals such as contrast bias, halo effect, and recency bias. The document recommends books and resources to help managers understand these biases and give effective performance reviews. It also outlines several common methods for conducting performance appraisals, including ranking, rating scales, checklists, critical incidents, essays, and behaviorally anchored rating scales. Additional related topics on performance appraisals are listed at the end such as forms, examples, phrases, and software.
1. Employee performance appraisal comments
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I. Contents of getting employee performance appraisal comments
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One of the most difficult aspects in the performance appraisal process has to do with biases. A
bias is defined as a prejudice in favor of or against someone or something. It should go without
saying that employees expect their performance evaluations to be fair and free of biases.
bias, biases, performance, performance appraisal, SHRM, employee, manager, honest
Many different kinds of bias can show up during the performance appraisal process. Here are
five common ones:
Contrast – This occurs when the manager compares an employee’s performance to other
employees instead of the company standard. When employees are ranked in comparison,
someone must end up at the bottom, even if they are exceeding the company standard.
The problem isn’t the employee – it’s the goal or standard that has been set.
Halo – An employee is rated highly in all areas because of one thing they do really well.
I’ve seen this happen with sales people. She hits the numbers and senior leadership loves
it. But behind the scenes, she creates havoc and doesn’t have the respect of her co-
workers.
Horn – On the flip side, an employee is rated as a poor performer because of one thing
they don’t do well. For example, the administrative assistant who is great at everything
but filing. It piles up because he puts it off – resulting in the company hiring a temp to get
the filing caught up. In all other areas, he’s a rock star.
2. Leniency – A manager gives everyone on their team a satisfactory rating. Unfortunately,
I’ve seen this occur a lot when a manager has a large span of control coupled with a
common review date. The manager has dozens of reviews to work on and a heart full of
good intentions. But somewhere around review number 17, the manager gets burned out
and starts giving everyone a satisfactory response. Because it doesn’t require any written
supporting statements.
Recency – The employee’s most recent behavior becomes the primary focus of the
review. This can go both ways. A poor performer does something terrific and their past
performance is forgotten. Or an excellent performer makes a mistake and it weighs down
the rest of the review.
If you’re looking for some resources to help managers better understand these biases, I found a
good book during the SHRM Annual Conference. “The First-Time Manager’s Guide to
Performance Appraisals” by Diane Arthur goes into biases and much more. This book would be
very handy for organizations that don’t need a full-blown performance appraisal training session
– maybe because the company has just a handful of managers who give appraisals or only a
couple managers need a refresher.
I’d also suggest pairing it with the book “2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews” by
Paul Falcone. I know, I know, some people are anti-phrases books but for managers who are
looking for creative inspiration when it comes to writing about employee performance, it’s
helpful. Even for managers with solid writing skills, it’s not easy to find the right words when an
employee needs to improve their performance.
One thing I found useful in the “2600 Phrases” book were the phrases for meeting/exceeding
expectations. As a HR pro, I’ve often had to work with managers to make sure when an
employee’s performance was being reflected as either meeting or exceeding expectations; it was
truly expressed in the proper area. You know, “meeting the standard” isn’t misinterpreted as
“exceeding the standard”.
The more resources we provide to managers, the more comfortable they will get at discussing
performance. This only benefits employees and the company.
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III. Performance appraisal methods
3. 1.Ranking Method
The ranking system requires the rater to rank his
subordinates on overall performance. This consists in
simply putting a man in a rank order. Under this method,
the ranking of an employee in a work group is done
against that of another employee. The relative position of
each employee is tested in terms of his numerical rank. It
may also be done by ranking a person on his job
performance against another member of the competitive
group.
Advantages of Ranking Method
i. Employees are ranked according to their performance
levels.
ii. It is easier to rank the best and the worst employee.
Limitations of Ranking Method
i. The “whole man” is compared with another “whole man”
in this method. In practice, it is very difficult to compare
individuals possessing various individual traits.
ii. This method speaks only of the position where an
employee stands in his group. It does not test anything
about how much better or how much worse an employee
is when compared to another employee.
iii. When a large number of employees are working, ranking
of individuals become a difficult issue.
iv. There is no systematic procedure for ranking individuals
in the organization. The ranking system does not eliminate
the possibility of snap judgements.
2. Rating Scale
Rating scales consists of several numerical scales
representing job related performance criterions such as
dependability, initiative, output, attendance, attitude etc.
Each scales ranges from excellent to poor. The total
numerical scores are computed and final conclusions are
derived. Advantages – Adaptability, easy to use, low cost,
every type of job can be evaluated, large number of
employees covered, no formal training required.
Disadvantages – Rater’s biases
4. 3. Checklist method
Under this method, checklist of statements of traits of
employee in the form of Yes or No based questions is
prepared. Here the rater only does the reporting or
checking and HR department does the actual evaluation.
Advantages – economy, ease of administration, limited
training required, standardization. Disadvantages – Raters
biases, use of improper weighs by HR, does not allow
rater to give relative ratings
4. Critical Incidents Method
The approach is focused on certain critical behaviors of
employee that makes all the difference in the
performance. Supervisors as and when they occur record
such incidents. Advantages – Evaluations are based on
actual job behaviors, ratings are supported by
descriptions, feedback is easy, reduces recency biases,
chances of subordinate improvement are high.
Disadvantages – Negative incidents can be prioritized,
forgetting incidents, overly close supervision; feedback
may be too much and may appear to be punishment.
5. Essay Method
5. In this method the rater writes down the employee
description in detail within a number of broad categories
like, overall impression of performance, promoteability
of employee, existing capabilities and qualifications of
performing jobs, strengths and weaknesses and training
needs of the employee. Advantage – It is extremely
useful in filing information gaps about the employees
that often occur in a better-structured checklist.
Disadvantages – It its highly dependent upon the writing
skills of rater and most of them are not good writers.
They may get confused success depends on the memory
power of raters.
6. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales
statements of effective and ineffective behaviors
determine the points. They are said to be
behaviorally anchored. The rater is supposed to
say, which behavior describes the employee
performance. Advantages – helps overcome rating
errors. Disadvantages – Suffers from distortions
inherent in most rating techniques.
III. Other topics related to Employee performance appraisal comments (pdf
download)
• Top 28 performance appraisal forms
• performance appraisal comments
• 11 performance appraisal methods
• 25 performance appraisal examples
• performance appraisal phrases
• performance appraisal process
• performance appraisal template
• performance appraisal system
• performance appraisal answers
• performance appraisal questions
• performance appraisal techniques
• performance appraisal format
