What are the pros and cons of performance appraisals?

Answer 1

Performance Appraisal

Benefits of Appraisal

Perhaps the most significant benefit of appraisal is that, in the rush and bustle of daily working life, it offers a rare chance for a supervisor and subordinate to have "time out" for a one-on-one discussion of important work issues that might not otherwise be addressed.

Almost universally, where performance appraisal is conducted properly, both supervisors and subordinates have reported the experience as beneficial and positive.

Appraisal offers a valuable opportunity to focus on work activities and goals, to identify and correct existing problems, and to encourage better future performance. Thus the performance of the whole organization is enhanced.

For many employees, an "official" appraisal interview may be the only time they get to have exclusive, uninterrupted access to their supervisor. Said one employee of a large organization after his first formal performance appraisal, "In twenty years of work, that's the first time anyone has ever bothered to sit down and tell me how I'm doing."

The value of this intense and purposeful interaction between a supervisors and subordinate should not be underestimated.

Motivation and Satisfaction

Performance appraisal can have a profound effect on levels of employee motivation and satisfaction - for better as well as for worse.

Performance appraisal provides employees with recognition for their work efforts. The power of social recognition as an incentive has been long noted. In fact, there is evidence that human beings will even prefer negative recognition in preference to no recognition at all.

If nothing else, the existence of an appraisal program indicates to an employee that the organization is genuinely interested in their individual performance and development. This alone can have a positive influence on the individual's sense of worth, commitment and belonging.

The strength and prevalence of this natural human desire for individual recognition should not be overlooked. Absenteeism and turnover rates in some organizations might be greatly reduced if more attention were paid to it. Regular performance appraisal, at least, is a good start.

Training and Development

Performance appraisal offers an excellent opportunity - perhaps the best that will ever occur - for a supervisor and subordinate to recognize and agree upon individual training and development needs.

During the discussion of an employee's work performance, the presence or absence of work skills can become very obvious - even to those who habitually reject the idea of training for them!

Performance appraisal can make the need for training more pressing and relevant by linking it clearly to performance outcomes and future career aspirations.

From the point of view of the organization as a whole, consolidated appraisal data can form a picture of the overall demand for training. This data may be analysed by variables such as sex, department, etc. In this respect, performance appraisal can provide a regular and efficient training needs audit for the entire organization.

Recruitment and Induction

Appraisal data can be used to monitor the success of the organization's recruitment and induction practices. For example, how well are the employees performing who were hired in the past two years?

Appraisal data can also be used to monitor the effectiveness of changes in recruitment strategies. By following the yearly data related to new hires (and given sufficient numbers on which to base the analysis) it is possible to assess whether the general quality of the workforce is improving, staying steady, or declining.

Employee Evaluation

Though often understated or even denied, evaluation is a legitimate and major objective of performance appraisal.

But the need to evaluate (i.e., to judge) is also an ongoing source of tension, since evaluative and developmental priorities appear to frequently clash. Yet at its most basic level, performance appraisal is the process of examining and evaluating the performance of an individual.

Though organizations have a clear right - some would say a duty - to conduct such evaluations of performance, many still recoil from the idea. To them, the explicit process of judgment can be dehumanizing and demoralizing and a source of anxiety and distress to employees.

It is been said by some that appraisal cannot serve the needs of evaluation and development at the same time; it must be one or the other.

But there may be an acceptable middle ground, where the need to evaluate employees objectively, and the need to encourage and develop them, can be balanced.

Answer 2

Purpose,

Benefits &

Potential Problems

for Performance Appraisal

Purpose:

Performance appraisals always help to improve performance in the future

1. Give feedback on performance to employees.
2. Identify employee training needs.
3. Document criteria used to allocate organizational rewards.
4. Form a basis for personnel decisions: salary increases, promotions, disciplinary actions, etc.
5. Provide the opportunity for organizational diagnosis and development.
6. Facilitate communication between employee and administrator.
7. Validate selection techniques and human resource policies to meet federal Equal Employment Opportunity requirements

Benefits:

Motivation and Satisfaction- Performance appraisal provides employees with recognition for their work efforts. Sttudies have found that all of us will even prefer negative recognition in preference to no recognition at all.

If nothing else, the existence of an appraisal program indicates to an employee that the organization is genuinely interested in their individual performance and development. This can have a positive influence on the individual's sense of worth, commitment and belonging.

Absenteeism and turnover rates in some organizations might be greatly reduced if more attention were paid to it.

Training and Development - Performance appraisal offers an excellent opportunity for a supervisor and subordinate to recognize and agree upon individual training and development needs.

Performance appraisal can make the need for training more pressing and relevant by linking it clearly to performance outcomes and future career aspirations.

Recruitment and Induction - Appraisal data can be used to monitor the success of the organization's recruitment and induction practices. For example, how well are the employees performing who were hired in the past years?

Appraisal data can also be used to monitor the effectiveness of changes in recruitment strategies. By following the yearly data related to new hires it is possible to assess whether the general quality of the workforce is improving, staying steady, or declining.

Employee Evaluation - Performance appraisal is the process of examining and evaluating the performance of an individual.

Potential Problems:

Don't assess actual performance - most of the assessment that managers complete focuses on "the person"

Infrequent feedback - if the primary goal of the process is to identify and resolve performance issues, executing the process annually is not good should be quarterly

Non-data-based assessment - most processes rely 100% on the memory of those completing the assessment.

Lack of accountability - managers are not measured or held accountable for providing accurate feedback. While they may be chastised for completing them late, there is no penalty for doing a half-assed job or making mistakes on them

Disconnected from rewards - in too many organizations, getting a merit raise, bonus, or promotion is completely disconnected from an employee's performance appraisal scores.

No integration - the process is not fully integrated with compensation, performance management, development, or staffing

Individual scores exceed team performance - without controls, quite often the average score of team members exceeds the actual performance of the team

Each year stands alone - each performance appraisal by definition covers a finite period of time, an employee's performance must be assessed over multiple years.

No second review - even though the process may have impacts on salary, job security, and promotion, in many firms the assessment is done by a single manager. If there is a second review, it may be cursory, and therefore not ensure accuracy or fairness.

Not reliable or valid - most process managers do not regularly demonstrate with metrics that the process is consistently repeatable (reliable) and that it accurately assesses performance (valid).

Cross-comparisons are not required - one of the goals of the process is often to compare the performance of employees in the same job. Unfortunately, most appraisal processes do not require managers to do a side-by-side comparison, comparing each member of the team with one another.

Assessments are kept secret - although a salesperson's performance ranking may be posted on a wall, performance appraisals are often kept secret.

Process manager is not powerful - often the process is managed by lower-level HR administrators without a complete understanding of performance and productivity.

No process goals - the overall process operates without clear and measurable goals, and as a result there is little focus.

Doesn't address diversity - all too often, the same appraisal form is applied to a large but not homogeneous group of employees (i.e. all hourly, all exempts, all managers etc.). As a result, the assessment form does not fit the job. Only management-by-objective-type approaches address individual needs.

The process does not flex with the business - rarely does any portion of the appraisal process flex to address changing business objectives.

The factors are all equal - most forms treat all assessment factors as if they are of equal importance. Instead, they should be weighted based on their relative importance in a particular job

Inconsistent ratings on the same form - it is not uncommon for managers to put one level (high, average or low) of ratings

Disconnected from job descriptions - the factors on the form are completely different from the factors on an employee's job description, bonus criteria, or yearly goals. This can confuse employees and cause them to lose focus.

Managers are not trained - managers are not trained on how to assess and give honest feedback. If the process includes a career development component, it is even more likely that managers will not know how to enhance the career path of their employees.

Gaming the system - often managers artificially rate individual employees to save money or to keep employees from becoming visible for promotion. Some selfishly give a score just below that required for a pay increase, while others give scores just above the point where they would be required to take disciplinary action.

Corporate culture issues -there are cultural norms and values that influence performance appraisals. For example, in one organization new hires were automatically given an average rating for their first year, regardless of their actual performance.

Inconsistency across managers - some managers are naturally "easy raters" while others are not. As a result, employees working under easy managers have a better chance of promotion due to their higher scores.

Managers don't know the employee - managers of large and global organizations, as well as newly hired and "transferred in" managers may be forced to do appraisals on employees they barely know. Recently promoted managers may be forced to assess their former friends and colleagues.

Mirror assessments - have a tendency to rate people like themselves more positively. This can result in discrimination issues.

Managers are not rewarded - managers that go out of their way to provide honest feedback and actually improve the performance of their workers are not rewarded or recognized.

Managers don't own it - managers often feel they don't own the process, so they invest little in it and proceed to blame HR for everything.

One-way communication - some managers simply give the employee the form to quickly sign and they don't even solicit feedback. Many employees are intimidated by managers and the process, and as a result, they say nothing during or after the appraisal.

Self-assessment is not possible - if an ambitious employee wanted to self-assess their performance midstream (in order to improve), most processes do not provide access to the instrument.

No alerts - most processes do not allow an employee to be notified midstream should their performance change to the point where it was suddenly dramatically below standards.

One-way process - in most cases, employees also have no input into the factors that they are assessed on, how often they are assessed

No appeal process - employees who disagree with her appraisal are seldom given the opportunity to challenge the results with a neutral party.

Many possible emotional consequences - if performance appraisal is blotched, you can expect a decrease in employee engagement, trust, employer brand strength, teamwork, and innovation contribution. Employee referrals

A time-consuming process - most of the forms are incredibly long and time-consuming. As a result, some managers routinely recycle "last year's" evaluations.

It is historical - the process is focused on capturing feedback about last year rather than on discussing necessary changes to job and skill requirements that must necessitated by the business strategy.

Answer 3

A couple of the benefits of regular performance appraisals in the workplace are for one, helps employees who like to know where they stand concerning their job performance and role in the company. Another benefit to a performance appraisal is that it builds rapport between the employeer and employee with a one-on-one chat.

Answer 4

There are any benefits of doing regular employee performance appraisals, for one it would give the employee more incentive to work harder to meat goals and deadlines, it shows the employer where the weakest links are, and helps them come up with ideal solutions to increase goals and then meet them.