Question

Explain one of the Rater Errors and the consequences of that error. What training and/or systems would you put in place for the leadership of an organization in order to reduce the impact of that Rater Error on performance management? The Rater Errors are stereotype error, attribution error, spillover error, halo error, and primary error.

The subject is Evaluation, Coaching, and Mentoring

Answer 1

Rater Errors

Rater Errors are those errors that occurred while evaluating an individual by another individual. These errors occur mainly due to personal biases or perceptions of the evaluator. Stereotype error, attribution error, spillover error, halo error, and primary error, etc are the major categories of rater errors. Details of Stereotype error can be explained below.

Stereotype Error

Stereotype Errors are those errors that are occurred when an evaluator evaluates an employee on the basis of their individual differences such as religion, race, age, gender, experience, etc. It mainly occurs when an evaluator generalizes an employe's performance on the basis of the cultural or ethnic or gender or religious group he or she belongs to. For example, freshers hired from a particular educational institution does not have any knowledge about work and so on.

Consequences of Stereotype Error

• Affect the accuracy-Normally these types of personal perspectives affect the accuracy of the evaluation that an evaluator made.
• Lead towards discrimination-Stereotype Errors can lead to discrimination as the evaluation is made on the basis of individual differences.
• Difficulty in taking proper decisions-As evaluation is done on the basis of religion, race, age, gender, experience, etc.it is very much difficult to make proper decisions after the evaluation. For example, promotion or transfer.
• Problems in future incentives-As incentives are given on the basis of performance evaluation, there are chances that some problems may occur in the case of future incentives.

How to reduce the impact of Stereotype Error.

• Make appraisals objective-Evaluatore must try to make evaluation more objectively against subjectivity.
• 360° rating-If an employee's performance is evaluated from all the angels it is called as 360° performance appraisal. It helps in evaluating an employee's performance by different persons including self-appraisal.
• The use of automated performance appraisal-Use of automated performance appraisal instead of the paper-based appraisal will be helpful in identifying  Stereotype Errors.