Introduction
Performance appraisal has a very short history. It only began taking root in the early periods of 20th century. Performance appraisal is a common concept in the field of contemporary personnel management. It began as a simple way of justifying employees’ income. Since its inception, the concept has become universal and seems inevitable for every human resource department (Grote, 2002).
Three points of concern with the given company’s current evaluation form
The current company’s evaluation form has quite a number of points of concern. One of the points is that the current evaluation is not properly structured and is single sided. Besides, the evaluation form is not effective and seems to be done by only one person, the plant manager. Moreover, the plant manager only makes tentative decisions of the evaluation criteria. This is not effective.
The second point of concern is that the current evaluation form seems to emphasize on personal character and the relationship with other workmates. In this case, the form does not take into effective consideration of the fact that the engineer has made tremendous contributions to the company’s profitability.
The third point of concern is that the current form of evaluation does not allow for participatory evaluation. The plant manager does the evaluation by himself and does not involve others in the whole process.
The commonly-used sets of criteria which should be evaluated in a performance evaluation
The commonly used sets of criteria which should be evaluated in a performance evaluation include contribution, skill set, work ethics and professional development. In relation to contribution, the focus is placed on contributions made by an individual toward the achievement of organizational goals and objectives (Robbins, 2009).
For instance, the focus may be placed on quantity sales, negotiated contracts and the value of financial benefits an employee may contribute to the company. Another set of evaluation may entail assessing an employee’s skills. For instance, in the process of evaluating skills set, the main concern may be technical skills and ability to troubleshoot problems and offer solutions to the problems (Robbins, 2009).
Evaluation based on work ethics may include assessment of an employee’s punctuality, motivation, absenteeism and interpersonal skills. Professional development may include assessing the commitment of an employee to further skills development. Specific deliverables may entail whether or not an employee attends workshops and training events (Robbins, 2009).
Relative value of the commonly-used sets of criteria
Every set of evaluation criteria has its own value. However, it is important to note that the set of criteria are all inclusively valuable in the process of performance evaluation.
The criteria assess various aspects of an employee’s personality which is crucial for the success of a corporate organization. Evaluation based on an employee’s contribution assists in determining how much the employee is bringing in for the company. This can be evaluated based on quantitative achievements of an employee (Robbins, 2009).
A skill set also has its own value. Besides evaluating the contribution of an employee to the company, assessing the skills of an employee is also valuable. This kind of assessment is important in determining the skills base of a corporate organization as a whole; it enables the organization to know the capability of every employee (Robbins, 2009).
Work ethics is important in terms of effectiveness at work. Performing evaluation based on this criterion assist in determining whether an employee follows the laid down regulations and norms; it may involve evaluating the commitment of an employee to an organizational culture.
Evaluation based on professional development is also valuable in terms of knowing an employee’s commitment to personal development and development of others within the organization; the process helps in gauging whether an employee is committed to achieving greater excellence (Robbins, 2009).
Advantages and disadvantages of including supervisors, peers, and subordinates in the evaluation process
The involvement of supervisors, peers and subordinates in the process of evaluation is advantageous. This makes everyone working for the corporation to feel part of the entire process and hence lend his or her full support to the criteria that may be set for the process.
Again, this kind of involvement enables the supervisors, peers and subordinates to consider the system of evaluation as fair because they are able to contribute their views in the process. This also gives them a platform to have a say on the evaluation process (Kleynhans, 2006).
However, involving them may also have some disadvantage. One of the disadvantages of this kind of involvement is that it is difficult to interpret the findings in case they may vary from one individual to the other.
Again, there may be biases in the evaluation process since an individual may give a low rating to the person he or she is not in good terms with. Besides, subordinates may not be comfortable to rate their supervisor (Kleynhans, 2006).
Three common performance evaluation methods used to analyze performance data after it has been gathered
Performance data analysis can be done using various methods. Three of these methods include use of graphic scales, checklists and critical incident method. All these methods are reliable. However, they differ in certain aspects (Schermerhorn, 2011). Checklist method involves a set of questions to which responses are either yes or no; this is quantitative in nature. However, it is not as effective as the graphic scale method.
Graphic scale method can be defined as any form of rating scale that consists of points calibrated within a continuum. In this method, managers are provided with a means of making judgement on the level of effectiveness for each employee along the provided continuum; the continuum has anchor points that clearly distinguish levels of effectiveness within the drawn continuum.
Besides, graphic scale allows a manager to grade performance in various tasks on one scale. A manager can compare the performance of more than one employee on a graphic scale at once (Schermerhorn, 2011). Graphic scale method is mainly preferred because it can be adapted to different specific formats.
Moreover, it is preferred for the reasons that it is easy to construct, it has a high level of acceptability for users and have a significant face value. Therefore, the manager of the corporation may consider using graphic scale method in performing employees’ evaluation.
Critical incident is a method that has been used for long. However, it has the potential of biases and errors since it involves recording of bad and good things done an employee. Some good and bad things may be missed in the recording process. Besides, it is unreliable due to possible biases of a manager with regard to a particular employee (Schermerhorn, 2011).
Biases and errors that frequently impact the accuracy of performance evaluations
There are many biases and errors that may impact the accuracy of performance evaluation. First, there is a possibility of personal bias by a supervisor; this is based on the perception that a supervisor may have on each employee working under his or her supervision.
For this reason, there is a purpose to fear that an employee whose performances require fair ratings, but is not in good terms with his or her supervisor, may receive a low rating instead and vice versa. Second, there is also a possibility of spillover effect. In this case, evaluation may be based on the past performance; this may override the current performances and hence demoralize employees instead of motivating them.
Third, there is horn effect. This is where an individual’s performance is evaluated based on negative features or quality. This implies that a supervisor may only concentrate on what an employee does wrong at the expense of what the employee does right.
The effect of this is that brilliant employees may not be taking new initiatives that they perceive to have the possibility of leading them into making mistakes; in this case, the employees may just stick to the traditional ways that are not prone to mistakes while performing their duties.
Lastly, halo effect is also a possible bias; this can be defined as the tendency to rate an employee low or high in his or her entire performance just because he got either low or high rating in just one or few areas in the process of work. This has the potential of creating dissatisfied and discouraged work force within a corporation.
Appropriate tools and techniques that can be used to improve performance evaluations in the given situation
Currently, the company uses one-sided technique. This is the reason the evaluation process is not effective. In order to improve performance evaluations, interactive and developmental techniques should be adopted.
Interactive technique will allow all stakeholders to participate in the evaluation process while a developmental technique is where the development progress of an employee over time. Each part of an employee’s work is evaluated differently. Both of these techniques will greatly enhance evaluation performances in the company.
Conclusion
Employees’ performance evaluation is important for every corporate organization (Grote, 2002). The problem with the evaluation form of the company is that it is one-sided process in which the plant manager is the one doing the evaluation.
It is therefore important for the company to adopt a participatory approach to ensure effectiveness of the entire evaluation process. It is important to note that the performance evaluation process is bound to have biases and errors some of which may be personal. The three common evaluation methods include checklist, graphic scales and critical event method.
References
Grote, R. (2002). The Performance Appraisal Question and Answer Book: A Survival Guide for Managers. Hampshire: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
Kleynhans, R. (2006). Human Resource Management. South Africa: Pearson South Africa.
Robbins, S. (2009). Organizational Behaviour: Global and Southern African Perspectives. Cape Town: Pearson South Africa.
Schermerhorn, J. (2011). Exploring Management. Hampshire: John Wiley and Sons.