Ready-to-Use Performance Appraisals

Downloadable, Customizable Tools for Better, Faster Reviews!

William S. Swan, PhD, Leslie E. Wilson

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780470047095
• eBook ISBN: 9781118428658
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Performance appraisals are one of the least enjoyable duties managers face. They're time-consuming, tedious, and require the perfect balance between criticism and praise. This collection of handy, ready-to-use performance appraisals will save you time and effort, while increasing the clarity and value of your appraisals. These customizable sample evaluations can address almost any situation.

PART I

TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS

Chapter 1

Guidelines and Tips for Rating Performance

When we speak of rating performance, we are not referring merely to the clerical exercise of checking off boxes and averaging numbers, but also to the crucial business of arriving at sound judgments based on the evidence accumulated over the entire appraisal period. It is a task that requires managers to be fair and objective, and for most people, there is the rub. As a human being and not a robot, all your judgments are to some degree subjective. If there is no evidence to support or contradict your judgment, it is that much harder to know when you are wrong.

Common Rating Errors

In an effort to cope with this problem, industrial psychologists interested in how ratings are done for performance appraisals have categorized the 10 most common rating errors. As you read them, think about which errors you may have observed or of which you may have been a victim.

1. Similar to Me

Tending to rate people higher if they are similar to you (have the same values, interests, preferences), or rating them lower if they are not similar to you

Although this may sound like the behavior of snobs and aristocrats, it is a serious problem in a workforce characterized by increasing diversity, in which some managers cannot relate to the cultural differences of their employees.

2. Positive Leniency

Rating higher than a person deserves

“I give high ratings. It motivates my employees, it makes them feel good.” This approach usually takes the form of giving Bob a higher rating than he deserves to encourage him, hoping he will do better next year. However, Mark and Susan, who work in the same unit, receive the rating they actually deserve. When they see Bob getting a rating as high as theirs although it is obvious to them that he does not deserve it, they may be demoralized and discouraged. And what do you do next year when Bob does not improve? He can argue that his performance did not change from last year, so why should he get a lower rating? In fact being rated higher than one deserves is actually demotivating (“I can get the rating without working for it”) and fosters disrespect for the process. This rater error is particularly common if the rater is rushed.

3. Negative Leniency

Being reluctant to assign high ratings to individuals; rating people lower than they deserve

“Nobody’s perfect.” This is another strong tendency if the rater is rushed. Some managers set unattainable goals and objectives; thus, high ratings are never possible. Others are strict graders and refuse to give a rating at the top of the scale.

4. Halo-or-Horns Effect

Being overly influenced by a single favorable or unfavorable trait that colors the judgment of the individual’s other traits

Alternatively, prior to the review, the manager may allow another person’s positive or negative evaluation to affect the rating of the employee.

Jeff had incredible success in the past. Now it seems that he can do no wrong. Conversely, Jeanne had an off year two years ago. Her current high-quality performance is diminished by the memory of two years ago.

5. Recency Effect

Rating someone down or up based solely on recent events; ignoring the performance of the entire period

“What have you done for me lately?”

This is especially likely when the manager has not been keeping records during the year. Recent behavior and performance seem more relevant and meaningful, even if we remember the earlier performance.

6. Attribution Bias

Tending to see poor performance more within the control of the individual, and to see superior performance as more influenced by external factors

This sounds academic at first glance, but you are probably quite familiar with it. “If Steve is successful, it’s because of me. If he is not successful, it’s his fault.” (Of course, perhaps I did not coach him enough, set clear enough goals, or check back often enough.)

7. Stereotyping

Generalizing across a group; not recognizing individual differences

Beyond the obvious gender, racial, or cultural assumptions sometimes made, I run across managers who assume all college graduates with a 3.9 grade point average make the best job candidates, all engineers can learn quickly, all research scientists are highly analytical, and all salespeople are motivated and ambitious.

8. Contrast Effect

Making comparisons; evaluating the employee relative to the person last evaluated

This is most often seen with teachers or professors who rip to shreds the first student’s essay, only to realize by the fourth or fifth paper that every student seems to be missing the point: All the papers that come after that realization are treated much more leniently.

9. First Impression

Forming an initial positive or negative judgment and then ignoring or distorting subsequent information to avoid changing the initial impression

While similar to the halo-or-horns effect, here the rater actually is unable to shake an initial impression or admit a mistaken perception. This phenomenon has caused many a personal relationship to drag on longer than the objective evidence would support.

10. Central Tendency

Placing people in the middle of the scale, or close to the midpoint to avoid extreme positions; playing safe

Some organizations have actually forced managers to make this error by requiring a forced distribution or rating across employees to resolve a clustering of ratings at the top of the scale. Grade inflation should be corrected, but forced distribution is a draconian solution.

There is no way to eliminate the subjective element from judgments about employee performance. If managers have a mountain of facts at their disposal, their chances of being objective are greater than if they only have a few. But managers still have to interpret those facts and decide which ones are the most meaningful.

Nevertheless, good documentation and a systematic approach can make managers right a much greater percentage of the time. At the very least, it can make all their decisions defendable: The facts and procedures prove that judgments were not made arbitrarily. For that matter, systematic documentation and evaluation also can give other people the opportunity to look at that same data and come to their own conclusions. This can be important if upper management’s input and approval are required.

Writing the Performance Appraisal

In this chapter, we discuss writing the appraisal as if you are using a variation of the Model Performance Appraisal Form that we present in Chapter 3 (Form 3.1). You will find it useful even if you cannot employ all the steps in our version of the form. The principles of writing an accurate and effective performance appraisal are the same whatever form you use.

It is a three-step process:

1. Gather and analyze data throughout the appraisal period.

2. Rate the performance.

3. Write the narrative portion of the appraisal.

Of these three tasks, the first is by far the most time consuming and complex. It is also the most crucial.

Gather and Analyze Data throughout the Appraisal Period

If a manager wants to avoid the recency effect among other common errors, this is really the only way. Yet for many supervisors, it seems to be the most difficult to square with the realities of everyday management. “Where do I find the time?” Much depends on the degree of contact between manager and employees. How often does the manager really see the employees doing what they do?

Collect Data at Regular Intervals

The manager must determine in advance the time span within which data will be collected throughout the appraisal period—and then, when the time comes, do it. You might think of these as periodic miniappraisals, although the manager is only collecting information to use for ongoing coaching and feedback, not for final conclusions.

The appropriate time schedule for some may be weekly, for others monthly, quarterly, or semiannually, depending on the degree of involvement with the employee and the employee’s responsibilities. On the one hand, Phil, who is responsible for purchasing, selecting, and installing equipment, also must maintain the efficiency of the area and achieve these goals through teams reporting to him. The complexity and the high degree of independence inherent in Phil’s responsibilities might warrant relatively infrequent miniappraisals, perhaps done quarterly. On the other hand, Phil can and should collect information on his employees with much greater frequency—their tasks are simpler and more numerous; there is more data to collect.

Most managers are alert to relevant information when it hits their desk. They may even request certain reports or documents regularly. The problem with this approach is that it does not ensure that they are tracking each objective or performance factor regularly. At the end of the year, many gaps may exist in the data. We are suggesting a more systematic approach.

Assume a manager has decided that a monthly interval is appropriate. At each interval, the manager should see if he or she has information relevant to each of the performance objectives and performance factors. If not, the manager should check over the past month to see if anything has happened that should have been documented but was not. If the answer is no, then the manager should pay particular attention in the coming month to collecting data that will fill in the gaps.

If by the end of the year there is no information against an objective, how can the manager evaluate it? The goal is to have a number of pieces of information on each objective and performance factor by the end of the appraisal period.

Some managers ask the employee to give them the information relating to the objectives or performance factors in a monthly report. That is an excellent idea, but by itself is not enough. Unless the manager imposes an extremely high degree of organization and structure on it, the report will probably not cover all the performance objectives and all the performance factors, and the manager needs information on all of them. The discipline is to search actively and regularly, throughout the year, for the information on each objective and performance factor.

Do It Openly and without Pressure

We are not suggesting that a manager stand behind a pole, watch the employees, and take notes while they are working. Managers should avoid giving employees the feeling that they are being watched and judged. They should be able to say something like this: “Linda, these are the things we’ve agreed on for next year. We may make some adjustments during the course of the year, but for the moment, this is our target. At the end of this year, my overall evaluation of your performance will be based on how well you have done on all these individual issues. To assure I have enough information to make that judgment, I am going to be making notes to myself regarding all these issues on a regular basis. But, there is something you can do to help me. I’d like you to give me information on these issues as they come up, so I’ll have accurate information and can make a fair assessment at the end of the year.”

Is Linda going to run to her manager with every little mistake she makes? Perhaps not. But you would be surprised how many times an employee who understands the basis for the evaluation will go to the manager and say, “Well, I know you’re going to hear about this anyway, but I want to give you my side of it.” Or, “Here’s something that’s happening that isn’t going so smoothly, I want to make sure there isn’t any misunderstanding regarding the approach I’m about to take.” It adds clarity for you to ask for employees’ input. Experience shows that employees are often harsher on themselves than their managers would have been.

Document as You Give Feedback during the Year

If data collected six weeks into the year suggests that employees are veering down the wrong path, it would be unwise to wait until the end of the year to tell them about it. The manager should make an intervention now, if possible. On the other hand, that event, and the action the manager finds necessary to take, should still go into the system as a piece of data for ultimate inclusion in the performance appraisal.

Suppose I am reviewing Linda’s performance at the end of the year. She says, “Lately I’ve been trying hard and doing a lot better. I think I deserve a rating of ‘exceeded the standard’ on that performance factor.” The manager can say, “In fact, most of the year your performance on that factor ‘met the standard’ and a couple of times you exceeded it. But in the first two months, you were performing ‘below the standard’ so overall for the year you performed at ‘met the standar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• List Of Downloadable Forms and Evaluation Statements
• Introduction: How to Use This Book
• Part I: Tips for Effective Performance Appraisals
• Part II: Downloadable Performance Appraisal Forms
• Part III: Ready-To-Use, Downloadable, Customizable Evaluation Statements
• About the Authors