Question

Describe types of rater errors that can occur during performance review conversations?

Answer 1

Performance appraisals is the process of evaluation and development. A performance appraisal act as a system to support the hiring, training and development and act as the evidence for increase in the pay system or for termination.

It is very important to conduct the performance appraisal in a fair way. This can be done by

• Not comparing the performance of two employees or with other employees. Instead manager should focus on comparing the employees performances per company standard.
• Manager should not only focus on highest performance but also evaluating employees based on his or her behavior at workplace. A person may be a top performer but his or her behavior towards other is unacceptable then there is no point in rewarding that person.
• Manager should address the employees' issues in advance and not during appraisal time. Thus providing employees with the opportunities to improve their performance before the actual appraisal would be fair and acceptable.
• A written supportive statement is very important for the employees' rating. A manager should create a supportive evidence in writing to make the appraisal process fair.
• Performance appraisal should not be done on the basis of recent performance. Instead, it should cover all aspects that is required for the appraisal and rating.

The five measurement errors in performance appraisals are:-

• Stereotyping - This type of error is a result of discrimination based on the person belonging to a particular social group. The evaluation process gets influenced by this and results in stereotyping bias.
• Similar - to - me errors - This type of error occur when the manager gives more preference to people who are in some or the other way similar to him or her based on different dimensions. For example, the person who is from the same state as that of the manager is given the higher rating.
• Attribution bias - When the manager rate the employees based on his character, attitude or other qualities then this result in attribution bias. They generally relate the performance based on the internal motivation factors of employees.
• Halo effects - When a manager rate the employee based on his or her impression the manager has perceived initially and evaluate the performance based on this then it result in appraisal error.
• Leniency errors - This type of error occurs when the manager gives rating to everyone either too high or too low and it does not match with the actual performance of the employees. This is done to maintain good relation and avoid confrontation with employees who has been given low rating.

Thus errors or biases in appraisal process makes it difficult to differentiate between a good performers, average performers and bad performers. Not rating the employees correctly and genuinely will impact the employees morale or make the employees carefree. Thus it is very important to evaluate the employees accurately.