Set A - Performance Appraisal

• Employee engagement refers to the level of commitment workers make to their employer, seen in their willingness to stay at the firm and to go beyond the call of duty.
• Firms want employees that are highly motivated and feel they have a real stake in the company’s success. Such employees are willing to finish tasks in their own time and see a strong link between the firm’s success and their own career prospects. In short, motivated, empowered employees work hand in hand with employers in an atmosphere of mutual trust.
• David and Nita concluded that in a world where work tasks have become increasingly similar, engaged employees could give some companies the edge over their rivals.
• At the core of the John Lewis philosophy is a belief that employees are critical to success. Employees benefit from an environment that positively encourages a healthy work–life balance and engagement in community projects and charity work.
• The performance appraisal process is then described and the possible criteria used in evaluating performance are discussed.
• Performance management (PM) is a goal-oriented process directed toward ensuring that organizational processes are in place to maximize the productivity of employees, teams, and ultimately, the organization. It is a major player in accomplishing organizational strategy in that it involves measuring and improving the value of the workforce.
• Performance Management includes incentive goals and the corresponding incentive values so that the relationship can be clearly understood and communicated. There is a close relationship between incentives and performance.
• Whereas performance appraisal occurs at a specific time, performance management is a dynamic, ongoing, continuous process. Every person in the organization is a part of the Performance Management system. Each part of the system, such as training, appraisal, and rewards, is integrated and linked for the purpose of continuous organizational effectiveness.
• Robert J. Greene, CEO of Reward Systems Inc., said, "Performance management is the single largest contributor to organizational effectiveness. If you ignore performance management, you fail."
• Performance appraisal (PA) is a formal system of review and evaluation of individual or team task performance. A critical point in the definition is the word formal, because in actuality, managers should be reviewing an individual’s performance on a continuing basis.
• Performance Appraisal is especially critical to the success of performance management. Although performance appraisal is but one component of performance management, it is vital, in that it directly reflects the organization’s strategic plan.
• Performance appraisal is often a negative, disliked activity and one that seems to elude mastery.6 Managers do not like giving them and employees do not like receiving them.
• Performance appraisal serves many purposes, and improved results and efficiency are increasingly critical in today’s globally competitive marketplace. Developing an effective performance appraisal system has been and will continue to be a high priority for management.
• the primary goal of an appraisal system is to improve individual and organizational performance. True
• Through performance appraisal it may be discovered that there is an insufficient number of workers who are prepared to enter management. Plans can then be made for greater emphasis on management development.
• Performance evaluation ratings may be helpful in predicting the performance of job applicants. For example, it may be determined that a firm’s successful employees (identified through performance evaluations) exhibit certain behaviors when performing key tasks.
• By identifying deficiencies that adversely affect performance, Training and Development programs can be developed that permit individuals to build on their strengths and minimize their deficiencies.
• career planning is an ongoing process whereby an individual sets career goals and identifies the means to achieve them. On the other hand, career development is a formal approach used by the organization to ensure that people with the proper qualifications and experiences are available when needed.
• Uses of Performance Appraisal are; Human Resource Planning, Recruitment and Selection, Training and Development, Career Planning and Development, Compensation Programs, Internal Employee Relations, and Assessment of Employee Potential.
• External and internal environmental factors can influence the appraisal process.
• Identify Specific Performance Appraisal Goals - Establish Performance Criteria and Communicate Them to Employees - Examine Work Performed - Discuss Appraisal with Employee
• Criteria or Standards for Establish Performance; Traits, Behaviors, Competencies, Goal Achievement, and Improvement Potential.
• Key areas for dependent on competency and specific skills are; Strategic Contribution, Business Knowledge, Personal Credibility, HR Delivery and HR Technology.
• Responsibility for Appraisal; Immediate Supervisor, Subordinates, Peers and Team Members, Self-appraisal, and Customer Appraisal.
• 360-degree feedback evaluation method is a popular performance appraisal method that involves evaluation input from multiple levels within the firm as well as external sources. The 360-degree method is unlike traditional performance reviews, which provide employees with feedback only from supervisors. In this method, people all around the rated employee may provide ratings, including senior managers, the employee himself or herself, supervisors, subordinates, peers, team members, and internal or external customers.
• 360-degree feedback focuses on skills needed across organizational boundaries. Also, by shifting the responsibility for evaluation to more than one person, many of the common appraisal errors can be reduced or eliminated.
• critical incident method is a performance appraisal method that requires keeping written records of highly favorable and unfavorable employee work actions
• The essay method is a performance appraisal method in which the rater writes a brief narrative describing the employee’s performance. This method tends to focus on extreme behavior in the employee’s work rather than on routine day-to-day performance
• work standards method is a performance appraisal method that compares each employee’s performance to a predetermined standard or expected level of output. Standards reflect the normal output of an average worker operating at a normal pace.
• ranking method is a performance appraisal method in which the rater ranks all employees from a group in order of overall performance. For example, the best employee in the group is ranked highest, and the poorest is ranked lowest. You follow this procedure until you rank all employees.
• Paired comparison is a variation of the ranking method in which the performance of each employee is compared with that of every other employee in the group. A single criterion, such as overall performance, is often the basis for this comparison.
• forced distribution method of performance appraisal requires the rater to assign individuals in a work group to a limited number of categories, similar to a normal frequency distribution. The purpose of forced distribution is to keep managers from being excessively lenient and having a disproportionate number of employees in the “superior” category.
• e behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) method is a performance appraisal method that combines elements of the traditional rating scales and critical incident methods; various performance levels are shown along a scale with each described in terms of an employee’s specific job behavior.
• BARS for Factor: Ability to Present Positive Company Image are; Clearly Outstanding Performance, Excellent Performance, Good Performance, Average Performance, Slightly Below Average Performance, Poor Performance, and Very Poor Performance.
• Problems in Performance Appraisal are; Appraiser Discomfort, Lack of Objectivity, Halo/Horn, Leniency/Strictness, Central Tendency, Recent Behavior Bias, Personal Bias (Stereotyping), and Manipulating the Evaluation.