PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Performance Appraisal is a systematic and periodic process that assesses an individual employees job performance and productivity in relation to certain pre-established criteria and organizational goals. Methods for Performance Appraisal:A. Traditional Methods 1. Essay Evaluation 2. Confidential Reports 3. Straight Ranking Methods 4. Paired Comparison 5. Critical Incidents 6. Field Review 7. Check lists 8. Graphical Rating Scale 9. Forced Distribution B. Modern Methods 1. Management by Objective MBO 2. 360 Degree 3. Assessment Centre 4. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale 5. Human Resource Accounting

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Methods of Performance Appraisal:

1. Essay Evaluation 2. Confidential Reports 3. Straight Ranking Method 4. Paired Comparision Traditional Methods 5. Critical Incidents

6. Field Review

7. Check-lsit 8.Graphical Rating Scale Performance Appraisal 9. Forced Distribution 1. Management by Objective -MBO 2. 360 Degree

Modern Methods

3. Assessment Centre 4. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale 5. Human Resource Accounting

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Traditional Methods 1. Essay Evaluation :i. Raters are asked to express the strong as well as weak points of the employees behavior. ii. Graphical rating scales are used also. iii. The factors considered during evaluation are: a. Job knowledge and potential of the employee b. Employee understanding on companys objective, procedure, policies, etc. c. Employees relation with co-workers, superiors, sub ordinate, etc. d. The employee's general planning, organizing and controlling ability; e. The attitudes and perceptions of the employee, in general. Limitations: 1. Essay evaluation is a non-quantitative technique. 2. It is highly subjective; the supervisor may write a biased essay. The employees who are
sycophants will be evaluated more favorably than other employees. 3. Some evaluators may be poor in writing essays on employee performance. Others may be superficial in explanation and use flowery language which may not reflect the actual performance of the employee. It is very difficult to find effective writers nowadays. 4. The appraiser is required to find time to prepare the essay. A busy appraiser may write the essay hurriedly without properly assessing the actual performance of the worker. On the other hand, appraiser takes a long time, this becomes uneconomical from the view point of the firm, because the time of the evaluator (supervisor) is costly.

2. Confidential Reports: i. Mostly used in government organizations. ii. It is a descriptive report prepared, generally at the end of every year, by the iii. iv. v. vi.
employee's immediate superior. The report highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the subordinate. The report is not databased. The impressions of the superior about the subordinate are merely recorded there. It does not offer any feedback to the appraisee.

Limitations:
The appraisee is not very sure about why his ratings have fallen despite his best efforts, why others are rated high when compared to him, how to rectify his mistakes, if any; on what basis he is going to be evaluated next year, etc. Since the report is generally not made public and hence no feedback is available, the subjective analysis of the superior is likely to be hotly contested. In recent years, due to pressure from courts and trade unions, the details of a negative confidential report are given to the appraisee.

3. Straight Ranking Method:

The ranking system requires the rater to rank his subordinates on overall performance. This consists in simply putting a man in a rank order. Under this method, the ranking of an employee in a work group is done against that of another employee. The relative position of each employee is tested in terms of his numerical rank. It may also be done by ranking a person on his job performance against another member of the competitive group.

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Advantages of Ranking Method

a. b. Employees are ranked according to their performance levels. It is easier to rank the best and the worst employee.

Limitations of Ranking Method

a. b. The whole man is compared with another whole man in this method. In practice, it is very difficult to compare individuals possessing various individual traits. This method speaks only of the position where an employee stands in his group. It does not test anything about how much better or how much worse an employee is when compared to another employee. When a large number of employees are working, ranking of individuals become a difficult issue. There is no systematic procedure for ranking individuals in the organization. The ranking system does not eliminate the possibility of snap judgments.

c. d.

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