Our Performance Appraisal System

Our Performance Appraisal System

Type of System Used

Performance appraisal is the systematic evaluation or assessment of an employee’s performance and potential for development. The purpose of a performance appraisal is to identify and reward high-performing employees and encourage others to work harder to receive a similar appreciation next time using formal and structured systems. Our company utilizes a modern appraisal system based on guiding values, leadership styles, frequency, formalities, job performance, and rewards. This modern approach is systematic, developmental, problem-oriented, coaching, facilitative, frequent, and organizational (Human Resources Management, 2022). The approach is also past-oriented and contains a rating scale, performance checklist, critical incidents, performance tests, and confidential methods. This methodology benefits all the workers and depends on the employee’s ability to meet the company’s bottom line.

Rater Training for Managers

Although managers are part of the workforce, they offer critical leadership advantages that place them at a vantage point to administer the performance appraisal system. Managers receive training regularly to help them determine high-performing employees and shortlist them for a reward based on their performance at the end of a given period. The managers recognize the effort of each employee and their commitment and consistency in delivering the desired outcomes. The managers receive training on establishing goals and desired outcomes, setting performance standards, comparing goals attained and the set objectives, and establishing new strategies and goals based on the previous performance. This ongoing training also equips managers with psychological skills and emotional intelligence to ensure they relate well with employees and work for the common good of the organization. The training equips managers with skills to ensure fairness in the appraisal of customers. Since the performance system's goal is to reward employees based on their performance, fairness is key (Leonard, 2019). Without it, employees will feel unmotivated.

Rating Errors

Various consistency errors occur in the performance appraisal system utilized in our company. These judgment errors are systematic and include the halo effect, leniency, central tendency, strictness, contrast effect, and similar-to-me effect (Dartmouth, 2022). The halo effect is an error occurring due to a tendency to make general assumptions about a worker based on one aspect of their personality. The halo effect in our institution is the outcome of positive or negative influence by an outstanding characteristic. The leniency error occurs when performance appraisers treat all workers as outstanding employees. In our company, managers do not always consider the true and unbiased characteristics of the employees based on performance. Rather, they see everyone as skilled and. 

Ways to Improve the System

There are various ways of improving the appraisal system in our company. One of them is eliminating consistency errors (EmPerform, 2022). Doing so will ensure that the company appraises individuals uniformly, based on their performance and ability to meet expectations and its goals and objectives. It is also important to eliminate these errors because they can undermine the value of the performance development process. The best way to avoid these errors is to critically examine the process and fill loopholes that allow bias to occur. The second approach is basing the assessment on measurable and specific objectives, making it easy to determine when the employee has not met the minimum requirements. Lastly, it is important to have a weighted scale and ask different people to have parallel weighted systems for each employee. Doing so minimizes bias, consistency errors, and favoritism in the workplace performance appraisal. 

References

Dartmouth (2022). Common rater errors. https://www.dartmouth.edu/hrs/profldev/performance_management/rater_errors.html

EmPerform (2022). How to avoid the 5 most common employee appraisal biases. https://employee-performance.com/blog/how-to-avoid-the-5-most-common-employee-appraisal-biases/

Human Resources Management (2022). Performance appraisal methods. https://corehr.wordpress.com/performance-management/performance-appraisal-methods/

Leonard, K. (2019, March 4). The pros and cons of performance appraisal methods. Chron. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/pros-cons-performance-appraisal-methods-39497.html