Performance Appraisal Errors

A. Effective managers have the responsibility of ensuring all employees have an opportunity to receive performance feedback. The objectives of the appraisal are to review the employee’s work-related behavior and inform the employee about the quality of his or her performance. However, occasional problems may arise from errors the appraiser makes? What are common problems raters make when performing an employee's appraisal?

B. In the textbook "Management of Human Resources" the authors identified six common problems:
 the halo effect,
 central tendency,
 leniency or strictness,
 appraisal bias,
 the recency effect, and
 the similar-to-me bias.

A. Can you explain these?

B. Sure, the halo effect, for example, means that the rating of an employee on one trait (such as “gets along with others”) biases the way that the person is rated on other traits (such as “quantity of work”); central tendency occurs when the supervisor rates all employees in the middle of the scale, avoiding high and low scores; on the other hand, strictness and leniency occurs when the supervisors rate all employees as either high or low; the individual differences (such as age, gender, race) that affect the appraisal's ratings that an employee receives in known as appraisal bias; regency affect occurs when the ratings are based on the employee's most recent performance rather then the performance throughout appraisal period; and the similar-to-me bias occurs when the rater and the employee have things in common.

A. What are some steps companies can take to minimize the impact of the rater-related appraisal error?

B. Just being aware of the problems and their consequences can help raters to avoid them. This may require specific recognition training or supervisor observation.

A. Alright. So by training and observing appraisers, companies can help prevent the common mistakes that impact the employee’s ratings.

Key Terms
This week’s HR terminology includes:
- the halo effect,
- central tendency,
- leniency or strictness,
- appraisal bias,
- the recency effect, and
- the similar-to-me bias

References
Dresslar, G et al. (2007). Management of human resource, in-class edition, second Canadian edition. Retrieved from University of Phoenix library.

Multiple-choice quiz
*Answer found at the end of the post.

1. This problem often occurs when employees who are especially friendly (or unfriendly) toward the supervisor.
a. Personable effect
b. Central effect
c. Halo effect
d. None of the above

2. Many supervisors have a __________ when filling in rating scales.
a. Central tendency
b. Strictness/leniency
c. Central effect
d. All of the above

3. One effective way of addressing rater errors is:
a. HR conducting appraisals
b. training of supervisors to avoid errors
c. getting raters from outside the company
d. automating the appraisal process


Answers: 1) c, 2) a, 3) b