Performance Management & Appraisal

1. Performance Management & Appraisal • Why? • Facilitates making fair and equitable reward decisions – pay and promotion decisions – Feedback. • Motivation & Discipline – reinforces good performance and eliminate or correct poor performance - Documentation • Developmental – career planning – identification of strengths, weaknesses, & needs.

2. Basic Issues • Done formally and informally – • Often one of managements most disliked activities – Why? • Identification and Measuring performance – Criteria: Trait-based, Behavior-based, results-based – must be relevant to most important aspects of employee’s job. • Standards – “benchmarks”, “goals”, or “targets” – to be effective must be realistic, measurable, & clearly understood – must be communicated to job incumbent. • Feedback – The key to an effective performance appraisal

3. Common Appraisal Problems • Unclear Standards • Halo Effect • Central Tendency • Leniency or Strictness • Bias

4. Identifying & Measuring Employee Performance • Job Criteria or dimensions of job performance – common to most jobs: • Quality & Quantity of output • Timeliness • Presence at work • Cooperativeness

5. Types of Performance Information: • Trait-based – subjective character traits of of employees – attitude, initiative, or creativity • Behavior-based – specific behaviors that lead to job success – “verbal persuasion” • Results-based – employee accomplishments – for jobs in which measurement is easy & obvious.

6. Performance Criteria Issues • Relevance – most focus on most important aspects of employees’ jobs. • Problems – deficient, contaminates, objective v. subjective measures. • Standards – define expected levels of performance -

7. Performance Appraisal Process Issues • How used – (see figure 11-3, p. 343) • Formal v. Systematic – • Responsibilities & Timing Issues • Who should conduct appraisals? • Multisource (360 degree feedback )

8. Methods & Problems • Figure 11-7, p. 351. • Rater Errors – figure 11-11, p. 359. • Appraisal Feedback Interview Hints – Figure 11-12, p. 362.

9. Reasons Why Performance Appraisal Systems Fail Legal Scrutiny • Courts are quick to reject appraisal systems that are subjective and not related to job performance. Job Analysis – key. • Must Validate – objective criteria easiest. • Assess for adverse impact. • Counseling to help poor performers improve. • Review process – checks and balance – use multiple reviewers. • Must Train Evaluators