Performance Appraisals

Performance appraisal is defined as a process by which manager determine if the requirements of a particular job have been successfully accomplished by the person being evaluated or as a process that ensures that employees behaviors match organizational objectives. Performance appraisal historically was used for hourly wage earners and to distinguish between high and low performers on the job. However, today they are used for all job types and aid in decisions about salary, promotions, ways to improve job performance, career counseling, and for identifying problem areas. Although performance appraisals are a necessity, both managers and employees alike tend to dread them. For employees, their future within the organization depends on the outcome of the appraisal, their salaries, promotion ability, and future responsibilities. From a management point of view, one has to be judgmental, yet maintain a trust-worthy relationship with the employee and stay well within the guidelines as to avoid any EEOC complaints that could be filed.

For a more effective management style, the once a year performance appraisal should be part of a performance management system. Performance management is a year long process that monitors employees, offers strategies, gathers information and assesses your employees. However, before you can design a performance management system, you need to understand the different types of performance appraisal methods. These methods can be used alone or in conjunction with one another. There are several different methods commonly used, and they are global essays and ratings, trait rating, peer ranking, organizational records, critical incidents, behaviorally based scales and behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS), and objectives and goal setting procedures.

The first appraisal system is global essays and ratings. This type of system is an annual evaluation in which the manager is given a form that asks "what is your overall evaluation of the employee's performance for the past year?" Management can either write their opinion in essay form or on a rating of excellent, good, fair, poor, etc. This type of system is really not advisable in today's workplace. The answers tend to be subjective and therefore not job related, which leads to trouble with the EEOC guidelines. Other problems with this type of system are that it doesn't break down his/her qualifications, strengths/weaknesses and it doesn't offer ways of giving feedback or ways to motivate the employees.

Trait rating is another type of system that is one of the most common today. In this type of system, there is a list of traits/qualities that the manager can assign a number to that indicates what degree that the employee possesses. A problem with this type of system is that the traits are too widely defined and sometimes prove to be un-job related.

Peer ranking is a system that ranks the employee in relation to other employees. This type of system is primarily used in the military. Peer ranking is typically used as an addition to other types of systems.

Organizational record based systems are simply based on the employee's records such as absentee dates, sales figures and production rates. This type of system eliminates the subjective bias that can occur with