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PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Problems that occur when managers complete performance reviews are a common thing.

During the performance appraisal meeting with employees, it's very important to separate your feels and your professional opinions. A few psychological effects that might happen during a performance appraisal are, "The Contrast Effect", "The Primacy Effect", "The Recency Effect", and "The Halo Effect" (Plous, 1993). I will attempt to provide examples and possible solutions to these effects and how they interact together with the decision making process and performance reviews. "Raters often aren't trained in employee counseling and may be forced to conduct performance appraisals with inadequate or erroneous information about ratee performance" (Patterson, 1987).

Comparison between Employees

One of the biggest problems I feel about performance appraisals is the fact that there are managers out there that will compare your performance with other employees (Rose, 2007). This is part of the "Contrast Effect". This doesn't really need to be a huge problem, as I know it could be. I know in my past experiences, I have compared my co-workers with either myself or other employees doing the same job. I have thus learned that I should have focused more on that particular co-workers performance so that I could help that worker improve their performance to the standards provided by the company. Other managers can also take that route and understand that everyone will perceive the job in a different view and might go about it differently, so it's the manager's job to fully train all employees to fulfill the job correctly so that everyone is doing it the same way.

Past and Present Performance Reviews

Previous performance reviews set up expectations for future reviews and when the present performance is different from past performances, therefore if an employee's previous performance review was great, and now the current performance isn't so hot, the manager's decision might be more on the negative since he's got the previous review already in his mind (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995). This could make it where the reviewer puts more of a negative response in the current review. Management could always review previous and current reviews very thoroughly and instead of making the review so negative, find different ways that could help the employee better his performance, since the point is not in firing the employee, but making his performance better, which would help the business out too. And also could make the manager, employee relationship better along the way.

Recalling Past Review Reactions

Another fallback could be that the manager could be recalling how the employee responded to the last performance review. If the employee took the advice and showed that he understood for the positive, then the manager might be more relaxed and have a positive attitude during the presentation. If the manager recalls the previous meeting to end in a negative, he might be a bit more reserved and he might keep that negative reaction on the back of his mind during the current review meeting. Management should be trained to act professionally during any encounters with employees, while not acting or showing how they really feel. If the manager shows and sets an example towards the employee and is willing to give the employee a hand, the employee might be more accepting to learn a different way of doing his job. This way the manager can leave out the feelings