Performance Appraisal essay

PerformanceAppraisal

Strategiesto improve appraisal formats

Iinterviewed a senior accountant in one of the companies in the stateconcerning his position that he holds in the company. The policy thatis applicable in this case is the administrative criterion where ifone of the employees is to be given a post, numerical evaluation istaken to determine the most suitable individual for the job. In mostcases, the previous performances of the employees are used as modesof selection to acquire a given vacancy. This method is adequatesince it identifies the performers and the hardworking people to leadthe technical posts in the company.

Thetype of format used in this case is the goal-oriented system, likethe management by objectives (MBO) this is because the person, whowill be given the mandate to lead a given department, should be in aposition to set out the goals that he will achieve together with theother employees. Failure to set out such objectives, the leader isconsidered not fit for the position.

Theformat that should be developed in this appraising is the validitysince the heads of departments need to be as accurate as possible tominimize the personal and employees’ errors that may be committedin the course of executing the usual duties at the place of work.

Improvementsshould be made in the administration selection to choose the rightcandidate, in circumstances where two or more individuals seem tohave almost related performances hence, posing a challenge inselecting any one of them. This is because, both the members cannothave equal performance but one must do better than the other. Thedimension chosen should be in a position to identify the best so thatthe performance will be maintained at the required standards.

Strategiesin selecting the right raters

Thenature of the performance ratings depends on the raters, who will beconducting the appraisal exercise. One of the possible raters to thisposition is the supervisors these are individuals who are close tothe employees below them, and they know the right individual thatshould be given the priority to lead due to the best performanceappraisals. While rating the workers, they have the experience neededto provide the accurate and precise evaluation results (Milkovich,Newman, and Gerhart, 2013). However, the results may not be reliableif the supervisor becomes biased towards a given individual forreasons better known to him/her. Another reliable rater is the peers,which will record what they see in the course of the performanceappraisal rating as they continue working with the employee. They maynot be biased, but the peers may not know much about the individualsthey are rating. These raters are used as they are more reliable thanothers methods in providing the accurate rating appraisals. The othermethods like self, customer, and subordinate may be highly biasedcompared to the other two methods discussed above.

Theraters play a key role in providing the management with theperformance ratings of the employees depending on the circumstance athand. They tell what they know about an employee and give the desiredmarks to the particular concept that they are testing. Such marks arethe ones that are totaled to find the rater who has betterperformance appraisals. Similarly, the raters are held accountablefor managing the whole assessment process. They are the correctraters because any failure or success of the examination processdepends on them in the course of delivering their duties (Milkovich,Newman and Gerhart, 2013).

Strategyof understanding how raters process information

Oneof the standard errors in the appraisal process is the halo errorwhere the appraiser may be impressed by one character of interest tohim and decide to give favorable ratings to all other duties, withouthaving any tangible evidence to do so. The appraiser will make anassumption that the individual is doing well in the other areas thatare not examined. Secondly, the horn error arises whenever theappraisal decides to give unfavorable ratings to all the other jobduties because the ratee did not perform as expected in onedimension. Thirdly, is the first impression error where the appraisalratings depend on what is seen first regardless of whether it ispositive or negative. The fourth category is the leniency error wherethe rater gives the ratings that are exaggerated (Milkovich, Newman,and Gerhart, 2013).

Consideringthe MBO appraisal processes, the standard error is the clone onebecause the rater and the individual who is rated have a commontarget. There can be a conflict of interest and the inability to doaccurate ratings.

Asthe ratee, I believe that the results can be favorable or unfavorabledepending on how the rater will decide. It will be unfavorable for meif I earn low marks where I should get high points because the raterfeels that I desire those little points. However, this will be asource of despair especially, in scenarios where I have a feelingthat I would have scored very high points. As such, I will lose thefaith that I have on the appraisal processes.

Strategyof training raters to rate more accurately

Thereare three rater training programs that include the rater-errortraining, performance-dimension training, and the standardperformance training. The rater-error training has an aim of reducingthe psychometric errors whereas the performance dimension ensuresthat the raters have the necessary knowledge when it comes to ratingthe performance aspect. Lastly, the performance standard trainingequips the raters with a standard comparison when they are making theappraisals (Feldman, Lazzara, Vanderbilt, and Diazgranados, 2012).

Therater-error training takes the form of ensuring that the raters arefamiliar with the existence of the errors and can easily identifythem. In the performance dimension, the training provides that theraters can reason in a similar manner when making the appraisals.Finally, the performance standard training provides the raters withbasic examples of the moral and the immoral which they will put inthe application while doing the appraisals.

Inthe organization, where the accountant I interviewed works, the ratertraining takes the form of rater-error training therefore, theraters ensure that the psychometric errors are minimized, and therating is done professionally without any bias.

Thereare situations where the background of the rater is the source ofbias when doing the appraisal. I recommend that the linguisticknowledge of the rater should be addressed in the training because itmight result in bias information (Wink, Gass, and Myford, 2012). Theraters will not take into consideration their accent as one of thedeterminants of their rating. Likewise, I recommend that theorganization jointly use all the other methods of training on theraters to ensure that the results of the exercise are very efficientand free of bias. This will make sure that the raters can usedifferent techniques while doing the performance appraisal to ratethe employees.

References

Feldman,M., Lazzara, E. H., Vanderbilt, A. A., &amp Diazgranados, D. (2012).Rater Training to Support High-Stakes Simulation-Based Assessments.Journalof Continuing Education in the Health Professions,32(4),279-286. doi:10.1002/chp.21156

Milkovich,G., Newman, J &amp Gerhart, B. (2013). Compensation:11^thEdition.McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Winke,P., Gass, S., &amp Myford, C. (2013). Raters’ L2 Background as aPotential Source of Bias in Rating Oral Performance. LanguageTesting,30(2),231-252. doi:10.1177/0265532212456968.

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