Introduction to management
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- Subordinates Supervisors Mean Rank A
- Percentage of Employees Ranking Remarks
- 5. Checklist Method
- 7. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)
- (iii) Discuss departmental goals
- (iv) Define expected results
- 18.5 Limitations of Performance Appraisal
- (i) Halo Error
- (ii) Central Tendency
- (iii) Leniency or Strictness
- (iv) Cross cultural biases
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2. Ranking Method One of the simplest method of performance appraisal is ranking method. The supervisor evaluates all the subordinates under him on an overall basis and then rank orders them from exceptional to poor. Each rank 304
indicates the position of an employee in relation to others under the same supervisor. In case these employees have worked under several supervisors each one of these supervisors ranks them according to his own assessment. Finally, all the ranks are grouped to see which one of the employees is rated low. An illustration of this is presented in Figure given below, where five subordinates working under three supervisors are ranked.
Ram
2 4 3 3 Sham 1 2 1 1.3
Mohan 3 1 2
2 Bharat
5 3 4 4 Ravi 4 5 5 4.6
One represents the highest rank. The individual ranking of three supervisors are added and they divided by the number of supervisors. The mean ranks are given in the last column. Since Sham gets rank of 1.3, he is on an average, the best of all few subordinates. The difficulty of this system is that the rater is asked to consider ratee as a wholeman. It is quite obvious that human personally is very complicated and to ask a human being to pass a judgements on another human being in terms of saying he is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is not only difficult but also undesirable. The subjectiveness of this method can be reduced by asking the appraiser to rank employee on certain desirable traits.
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Pair comparison force raters to compare each employee with all the employees in the same group who are being rated. For every trait (quantity of work, quality of work and so on) every subordinate is paired with and compared to every other subordinate. Suppose there are five employees to be rated. In the paired comparison method one can make chart, as in following Figure, of all possible pairs of employees for each trait. Then for each trait indicate. (with a + or -), who is the better employee of the pair. Next the number of items an employee is rated better is added up. In Figure, employee B ranked highest (has the most + marks) for quantity of work, while employee A was ranked highest for creativity. For the trait ‘Quantity of Work’
As
compared to
A B C D E A
+ + – – B
– – – –
C – + + – D
+ + – + E
+ + + –
↓ B
ranks highest
here For the trait ‘Creativity’
As
compared to
A B C D E A
– – – – 306
B + – + +
C
+ + – + D
+ – + – E
+ – – +
↓ A
ranks highest
here Note : + means ‘better than’; means ‘worse than’. For each chart add up the number of +’s in each column to get the highest ranked employee.
Some appraisers suffer from the constant error, i.e. they either rate all workers as excellent, average or poor. They fail to evaluate the poor, average or excellent employees clearly and cluster them closely around a particular point in the rating scale. The forced distribution system is devised to force the appraiser to fit the employees being appraised into predetermined ranges of scale. The forced distributor system is applicable to a large group of employees. This system is based on the presumption that all employees can be divided into five point scale of excellent, very good, average, acceptable and poor. For example, he may be asked to identify and rank employees according to the following percentages :
10%
Poor 20% Acceptable 307
40% Average
20% Very good
10% Excellent This method obviously eliminates the scope for subjective judgement as the part of the supervisors. Besides this, the system is easy to understand and administer. The objective of this technique is to spread out rating in the form of normal distribution. Many time this categorization is not found in work groups particularly when the group is comparatively small. 5. Checklist Method In the checklist, the evaluator uses a list of behavioral descriptions and check-off those behaviors that apply to the employees. As Figure illustrates on page 15, the evaluator merely goes down the list and gives ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses. Once a checklist is complete, it is usually evaluated by the staff of personnel department, not the manager doing the checklist. Therefore, the rater does not actually evaluate the employee’s performance. He merely records it. An analyst in the personnel department then scores the checklist, often weighting the factors in relationship to their importance. The final evaluation can then be returned to the rating manager for discussion with the subordinate, or someone from the personnel department can provide feedback to the subordinates. Sample of checklist for appraising Sales Clerks
Yes
No 1.
Are supervisors orders usually followed?.......... .......... 2.
Does the individual approach customers.......... .......... 308
promptly? 3.
Does the individual suggest additional .......... ..........
merchandise to customers? 4. Does the individual keep busy when not.......... .......... servicing the
customers? 5.
Does the individual lose his or her .......... .......... temper in
public? 6.
Does the individual volunteer to help .......... .......... other
employee? 6. Critical Incident Appraisal With the critical incident method, the supervisor keeps a log of desirable or undesirable examples or incidents of each subordinates work related behaviour. Then every six months or so, the supervisor and subordinates meet and discuss the latters’ performance using the specific incidents as examples. This method can always be used to supplements another appraisal techniques and in that role it has several advantages. It provides you with specific and hard facts for explaining the appraisal. It ensures you to think about the subordinates’ appraisal all during the year because the incidents must be accumulated. Keeping a running list of critical incidents should also provide concrete examples of what especially your subordinate can do to eliminate any performance deficiencies. Given below are a few typical incidents from a checklist for the appraisal of an individual in purchase department : • Displayed unpleasant behaviour to a supplier. • Consistently absent from work. 309
• Refused to work over-time when asked for. • Talked rudely and abruptly on the telephone. • Created a disturbance with loud speaking. • Accepted inferior quality goods from a supplier. • Failed to follow a chain of command. • Suggested a new method to work. • Accepted inferior quality goods. • Developed a new procedure that reduced paper work. • Rejected a bid that was unreasonably priced. • Helped fellow employees to solve their problems. 7. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) This method assists upon accurate measurement and improvement of job performance through feedback to appraisees. It provides statements of standards against which the performance of an appraisee is evaluated. These standards are put on the scales in BARS. There is one scale for each significant broad performance area or job dimension. While developing BARS, small group discussions are conducted with would-be appraisers and appraisees with a view to identifying the significant dimensions of a job which need to be evaluated. Different job dimensions identified in this way tend to form varied behaviorally anchored scales. For example, for a managerial position, the significant job dimensions may include : planning, organizing, controlling, leadership, motivation, communication and coordination. Frequently, the scale is presented vertically with “excellent” performance at the top and “very poor” performance at the bottom. There are a number of scale points ranging between five and nine in between these two extremes. Suppose, five job dimensions have been
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identified in a particular job. There will be five scales in the appraisal format, each having several anchors illustrating varied amounts of performance along the scales. These scales may also embody statements to facilitate the clarity of the job dimension being evaluated. To cite an example of BARS for the position of an equipment operator-one job dimension in this position is verbal communication. The excellent performance on this scale may contain the following statements : checks verbal instructions against written procedures, checks to ensure he/she heard others correctly, brief replacements quickly and accurately— giving only relevant information. On the other hand, a very poor performance on this scale may contain the following statements : not answers when called, refuses to brief replacements, gives a person relieving him/her inaccurate information deliberately. The appraiser is required to indicate on each scale the level of performance he/she visualizes is revealed by the appraisee’s typical job behaviour. While doing so, he/she makes use of the behavioural anchors and dimensions— clarification statements as guidelines and cues to recall the appraisee’s job behaviour. Explicitly, it is not possible for the appraisers to place behavioural statements embracing all dimensions of job performance on the scales. Therefore, they merely indicate specific behavioural examples which can be recalled for each appraisee at appropriate levels on the scale. In this way, these added anchors represent their own examples and rationale for an appraisal at a particular level. BARS are useful for varied reasons. Their major characteristic relates to behavioural orientation. They are based on job behaviour—what individuals really do on their jobs, which is within their control. Attachment of behavioural anchors to different scales enables the appraisees to understand what they must do to organizing the dimension 311
of a managerial job may include the following : assigns/delegates tasks, identifies alternative approaches to resource applications, coordinates human, financial and material resource applications and divides unit objective into identifiable tasks and sets due dates. This feature of specificity of these scales also enables the appraisers to provide relevant feedback to appraisees why they received a particular level of appraisal, and what they can do to improve their performance. This quality of the scale minimizes subjectivity in appraisal as well as also enables the appraisees to overcome their anxiety related to such appraisals. BARS also provide participation to both appraisee and appraiser in their development. They become familiar with different aspects of the job as a result of discussions of job dimensions and anchors in small group meetings. This understanding provides guidelines to the appraiser while observing performance and enables the appraisee to judge the expectations of his/her superior. Any conflict between he appraiser and appraisee over the desired performance can be clarified in subsequent discussions. The participation of their ultimate users in the design of BARS also ensures their commitment to this method of appraisal. As BARS are based on quantity measures, an attempt may be made to relate appraisal scores to current wage and salary structure with a view to ascertaining varying extents of rewards to different behaviors. Thus, the management may link different levels of merit raises to different ranges of scores on BARS. In addition, certain job dimensions can be singled out for bonus administration and allied purposes. Last but not the least, the scales can also be used to identify behavioural criteria to facilitate selection decisions, construct selection tests and specify behavioural training objectives. Explicitly, the job dimensions in BARS can help in formulating training courses, and the behaviour anchors can 312
indicate the specific behaviors to be learned in different content areas. The poor performance areas can be pinpointed to improve performance. Notwithstanding these advantages, BARS form a time-consuming method. Although it is promising, much more research is required to demonstrate its ability to eliminate certain types of rater errors.
This method of appraisal was introduced and made popular by Peter Drucker (1961). Management by objectives requires the manager to get specific measurable goals with each employee and then periodically discuss his or her progress towards these goals. You could engage in a modest MBO program with subordinates by jointly setting goals and periodically providing feedback. However, the term MBO almost always refers to a comprehensive, organisationwide goal setting and appraisal program that consist of following steps :
for next year and set goals. (ii) Set departmental goals : Here department/heads and their superiors jointly set goals for their departments. (iii) Discuss departmental goals : Department heads discuss the department’s goals with all subordinates in the department and ask them to develop their own individual goals; In other words, how can each employee contribute to the department’s attaining its goals.
subordinates set short-term performance targets. 313
(v) Performance reviews : Department heads compare the actual performance of each employee with expected results. (vi) Provide feedback : Department heads hold periodic performance review meetings with subordinates to discuss and evaluate the latters’ progress in achieving expected results. MBO, thus, is a performance-oriented system. A well thought out MBO system provides the following benefits to the organization. (i) The setting up of objectives provides a basis for coordinating between and among various units of the organization. (ii)
It establishes a linkage between the performance of the individual and organizations. Hence, both move in the achievement of same objectives. (iii) It becomes easy to implement because those who carry out the plans also participate in setting up these plans. (iv) Each employee becomes aware of the exact task that he is supposed to perform leading to better utilization of capacity and talent.
(v) The communication chain between and among employees and units are clearly established facilitating information sharing. (vi) The performance appraisal is built in the system itself. It provides the guidelines for self as well as evaluation by the supervisor against the set tasks and goals. (vii) It facilitates the task of employee guidance and counseling.
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Notwithstanding the above merits, the result oriented procedure has several limitations. The procedure is impracticable in situations where the superior is decisive and seldom bothers to involve the subordinates in goal-setting goals. Moreover, the procedure stresses tangible goals (i.e. production) and ignores intangible goals (i.e. morale). This may also cause concealment of poor performance, distortion of data and the fixation of low goals. MBO is a time-consuming. Taking the time to set objectives, to measure progress and to provide feedback can take several hours per employee per year, over and above the time you spent doing each person’s appraisal. Setting objectives with the subordinate sometimes turns into a tug of war with you pushing for higher quotas and the subordinate pushing for lower ones. 18.5 Limitations of Performance Appraisal The ideal approach to performance evaluation is that in which evaluator is free from personal biases, prejudices and idiosyncracies. This is because when evaluation is objective, it minimizes the potential capricious and dysfunctional behaviour of the evaluator which may be detrimental to the achievement of the organizational goals. However a single fool proof evaluation method is not available. Inequities in evaluation often destroy the usefulness of the performance system— resulting in inaccurate, invalid appraisals, which are unfair too. There are many significant factors which deter or impede objective evaluation. These factors are :
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It occurs when the rates allows one aspect of a man’s character or performance to influence his entire evaluation. It is the tendency of many raters to set their rating be excessively influenced by one characteristic rather than on all subsequent characteristics. This problem often occurs with employees who are especially friendly or unfriendly toward the supervisor. For example, an unfriendly employee will often be rated unsatisfactory for all traits rather than just for trait “gets along well with others”. Being aware of this problem is a major step toward avoiding it. Supervisory training can also alleviate the problem. (ii) Central Tendency Many supervisors have a central tendency when filling in rating scales. For example, if the rating scale ranges from 1 to 7, they tend to avoid the highs (6 and 7) and lows (1 and 2) and rate most of their people between 3 and 5. If you use a graphic scale, this central tendency could mean that all employees are simply rated “average”. Such a restriction can distort the evaluations, making than less useful for promotion, salary or counseling purposes. Ranking employees instead of using a graphic rating scale can avoid this central tendency problem because all employees must be ranked and this cannot all be rated averages. (iii) Leniency or Strictness The leniency bias results when raters tend to be easy in evaluating the performance of employees. Such raters see all employee performance as good and rate it favourably. The strictness bias is the opposite; it results from raters being too harsh in their evaluation. Sometimes, the strictness bias results because the rater wants others to think he or she is 316
a ‘tough judge’ of people’s performance. Both leniency and strictness errors more commonly occur when performance standards are vague. (iv) Cross cultural biases Every rater holds expectations about human behaviour that are based on his or her culture. When people are expected to evaluate others from different cultures, they may apply their cultural expectations to someone who has a different set of beliefs or behaviors. In many Asian cultures the elderly are treated with greater respect and are held in higher esteem than they are in many western cultures. If a young worker is asked to rate an older subordinate, this culture value of “respect and esteem” may bias the rating. Similarly, in some Arabic cultures, women are expected to play a very subservient role, especially in public. Assertive women may receive biased rating because of these cross cultural differences. With greater cultural diversity and the movement of employees across international borders, this potential source of bias becomes more likely. Download 1.62 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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