Porformance Reviews

Introduction

I am a Director of Human Resources for an internet matchmaking company. In recent months, the company has been sued by three employees who were laid off based on information in their performance appraisals. These employees have alleged that their performance appraisals did not accurately reflect their work and were based on inaccurate interpretations of work performance by the managers who prepared the appraisals. One employee has won her case and two others are currently pending in court. I have done some preliminary analysis and have discovered the problems lie in how the managers rate and measure their employee's performance. In order to prevent these problems from reoccurring I am going to tell you about four problems that occur when managers complete performance reviews. Then I am going to tell you what my suggestions are to prevent each problem. I will conclude with my own thoughts and views.

Problems with Performance Reviews

One problem that can occur is selective perception (Plous, 1993). In this kind of situation they only perceive what it is they are expecting to see. Sometimes a manager might have already set in their mind some kind of expectations. When someone does not do what they are told to do in a timely and accurate manner a manager could possibly review them as under performing and give a lower evaluation score. They should in fact be looking at that along with everything else such as quality of output.

Another problem that can occur is pre decisional dissonance (Plous, 1993). In this kind of situation they have some kind of bias against the person such as age or even sex. Let's say that a person who calls customer service on a prepaid credit card, everyone asks the same questions whether they are male or female. Word has gotten out that the male callers are not

sympathetic enough and the customers would be more willing to cooperate with a female, even though they both male and female ask the same questions and in the same manner. That is what I call biased, I too am known for that from time to time when it comes to my field.

Another problem that could occur is post decisional dissonance (Plous, 1993). This is not the same as pre decisional dissonance which influences your decision; it instead is based on a previous choice that has been made which effects later behavior. In this kind of situation they have already made up there minds that a certain employee is not performing well at all and won't change their mind even though the employee is performing their job quite well.

Last but not least another problem that could occur is a hostile media effect (Plous, 1993). In this kind of situation they have heard some negative things about a subordinate from others and have gone along with that instead of checking it out for themselves. This leaves them with a negative feeling towards this employee even though this employee is dependable and follows the rules. When managers believe everything they hear this will not help when it comes time to review performances.

How to Reduce or Eliminate These Problems

The main thing that needs to be done about all this is to set some kind of standards for these reviews. Explaining exactly what information the managers will review and exactly how to go about it. Also for employees, they need standards