Performance appraisal

Performance appraisal

Essay method
Comparative evaluation
Rating
Forced distribution method
Forced choice method
Graphic rating scale method
Field review method
Checklist
Confidential report
Critical incident method
Management by objectives (MBO)
Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS)
Cost accounting method
360-degree appraisal


Essay method
It is a traditional and judgmental approach under which employee is evaluated and a descriptive essay is written on him/her. The essay describes in detail about the strengths, weaknesses, potential, nature, etc.

Essay method helps in collecting a lot of information about the employees as the evaluators are not confined to appraise the employees in rigidly defined criteria. The process is unrestricted and flexible, permitting the employers to emphasize on any issues or traits that they feel relevant.

However, this method is tedious and difficult to manage as it demands more description than other methods of appraisal. The reports being descriptive in nature, it is difficult to compare and contrast them or withdraw any conclusion. Besides, the evaluator must have good writing skills, or else the whole process is distorted.


Comparative evaluation
Comparative evaluation is a technique of appraising employees by comparing and contrasting issues and traits of an employee with another. There are basically two ways to conduct comparative evaluation; they are:

Paired comparison
Under this method, the pairs of employees of same job post or level are formed, following which they are evaluated on the basis of performance of each other. Subjects like skills, experience, team player, behavior, etc. are evaluated by the raters and picks the best performing employee.To be precise, the raters are provided with a bunch of slips, each containing a pair of names of employees. The employee whom raters consider to be the best is given a tick mark and the process is repeated for all pairs. At the end, the employee who succeeds to get the most tick is considered to be the best while the employee getting least ticks is comparatively considered poor.

Paired comparison is a good method for evaluating employee performance. However, it becomes very difficult for companies with large number of employees to form pairs as the pairs are formed by applying the formula:
N (N-1) ÷ 2, where N = No. of employees
For an example, if there are four employees, the number of pairs formed will be six.

Ranking
Ranking is one of the simplest methods of performance appraisal. Under this method, employees are ranked from the best to the worst according to their performance level.The best performing employees are ranked #1 and the least performing one is ranked the last. Based on these rankings, the companies may take any actions, from promotion to termination. Although ranking method of performance appraisal is considered to be an easier approach, it becomes problematic and full of issues when conducted in a large scale. Also, this method of performance appraisal is criticized because it is unsystematic and results are often drawn on the basis of snap judgment.

Rating
Rating is a commonly used traditional method of performance appraisal. Under this approach, an employee is numerically rated from 1 to 10 on various job performance criterions like attendance, attitude, performance, output, sincerity, dependability, initiative, etc.The employee may be rated by his/her superiors, colleagues or even customers, depending upon the nature of job. Scores of all criterions are finally calculated, and results are withdrawn.
Rating method of performance appraisal is commonly used because it is economic in nature and raters do not require to have high skills to use it. Also, it is applicable in almost all types of job and even with large workforce.

Forced distribution method
Employers or raters are found to have tendency to rate their employees near average or above average performing categories. In around late 90s, Tiffen introduced a new method of performance appraisal call forced distribution, in an attempt to eliminate the flaws of the raters. Under this method, raters are forced to divide his employees evenly into certain categories which vary from organization to organization. The categories can be poor, average, good and excellent or percentile based like 10% poor, 40% fairly good, 40% good and 10% excellent. This method is widely applied and has been considered effective in service-driven companies. However, the method also has some drawbacks. They are: It creates false competition between employees. All employees might not fit neatly into a category, leading to their placement in such a category that does not reflect their true image.
Raters may end up placing more visible employees in superior categories and less visible ones in poor category, irrespective of their job performance.

Forced choice method
Forced choice method of performance appraisal was introduced by J.P. Guilford. It is one of the most systematic and reliable approach to evaluate employees accurately. Under this approach, the HR manager, at first, prepares a set of positive as well as negative statements. The statements are then forwarded to the rater, following which the rater indicates which of the given statements suits the employee. Once the rater finishes evaluating all employees, the report is sent to the HR manager for final assessment. Some examples of positive and negative statements are Positive statements
Communicates well with superiors. Plays active role in meetings and other office events. Negative statements Consistently over-promises and under-delivers.Isn’t punctual, often comes late to the office.Each of such statements, both positive as well as negative, carries certain score set by the HR manager, which is not even revealed to the rater. It makes the process more objective. The scores are at last summed up and conclusion is withdrawn. The employees with high scores are ranked at the top while least scoring employees are ranked at the bottom.Some critics have, however, noted that this method is time consuming and it is very challenging to construct pertinent evaluative statements.

Graphic rating scale method
Graphic rating scale is one of the oldest and commonly used methods of performance appraisal. Under this approach, the employees are evaluated on the basis of various job performance criterions, such that each criterion is categorically divided into poor, fairly poor, fairly good, good and excellent. Also, these criterions carry certain score weight. The rater ticks the category that best describes the employee and finally the score is totaled.

Field review method
Field review method of performance appraisal is conducted by the rater who does not belong to the employees’ department. The rater is someone from the corporate, especially from HR department.Use of this technique to evaluate employees’ performance is helpful in completely eliminating issues that arise due to rater’s biasedness. However, this method is not widely used because of the drawbacks. They are The rater is not familiar with employees, making it impossible for him to observe their actual behavior.The rater might feel aggrieved in cases when employees try to clarify any matter.

Checklist
Checklist method is another of the easiest methods of appraising employee’s performance. Under this method, a checklist is prepared by the HR manager and is forwarded to the rater. The checklist may include list of questions (depicting behavior and job performance of employee) and the rater has to answer them in just ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ form.