Benefits And Disadvantages Of Performance Appraisals

Development of a performance appraisal system that is effective in a human service organization is of benefit for the organization and the employees. For a performance appraisal system to be effective, the system has to be strategic, designed to fit the specific needs of the organization, non-discriminatory, non-bias, with correct implementation and administration. Many different components, must to be incorporated to make this type of system beneficial for all who use it, and all who are evaluated by the system.

An effective performance appraisal system strives for as much precision in defining and measuring performance dimensions as is feasible. Some of the major problems with the Darby appraisal system are:

The forced ranking is a very harsh rating system in my eyes. I believe the forced ranking system is unethical. Eliminating the bottom ten of an organization ever year can be costly to a company. It promotes employee turnover and increases the company’s labor cost. Recruiting, hiring and training new people to replace the terminated employees can be very expensive. There is no guarantee that the newly-hired employees will be any better than the old employees that were eliminated. This system is not fair to employees and emp0loyees don’t have faith in this system. There is better ways to manage performance and there are effective ways to improve performance level of employees. Management can control performance by exploring the causes of performance problem, what cause the problem, develop an effective plan and empower their employees to reach a solution, communicate with the worker and provide positive feedback. Once an employee has been identified as a non productive employees, management should find out why the employee is not productive and offer them coaching or training to help the individual.

The performance appraisals process is flawed in many ways. Lack of preparation, time, training, and professionalism are a few examples of how the system is flawed. The individual completing the application often has many tasks that supersedes taking the appropriate time necessary to accurately keep notations of an employee's performance throughout the year. The lack of time leads to an employee receiving a performance review on the most recent accounts of his or her job performance instead of his or her performance throughout the entire year. Lack of professionalism can also hurt the appraisal process. An employee should be rated by his or her job duties instead of the personal opinion or feelings the manager or supervisor completing the form. All

In an organization employees are the important asset and play a significant role in the progress of an organization. Nowadays firms usually focus on the human capital in the form of the employees by giving them training, assisting them in career development and also work on performance management in order to keep the employees motivated and dedicated by giving them feedback through performance appraisals. Through these performance appraisals the employees are informed about their strengths that they can enhance and about their weaknesses that they can improve in the future.

When you think of a leadership participation method, most people often think of or refer to the Path-Goal Theory method; where the leader does what he or she can do to clear a path and identify areas for employees to act or to perform their assigned duties. Using the annual Performance Appraisal (DeCA 50-3) as one document, it clearly states the objective of what needs to be done, and it helps to remove any and/or all any obstacles in place in an effort to accomplish the goal, and rewarding those who perform well with either a monetary or Time Off award, of course depending on current budget constraints. The levels in intensity a leader may do these things will vary according to the circumstances. Dependent upon the employee or follower in this sense, they may be more motivated or capable, or the work to be done could be easy or difficult. Leadership styles in this method can vary from being dictatorial to the leader being a participant. Experts in the field say that these styles include support, directive, participative, and achievement-orientation. “A leader facilitates the group by appealing to a group member 's self-esteem and making the task enjoyable or at least more palatable”. (House, 1971, revised in 1996). A leader simply may direct the employee to do the task, give simple instructions of how to achieve the goal or at some points, a leader may engage in a participative leadership style, where he or she takes suggestions from the employees within a particular

There are several ways to evaluate and manage employees. One of these means to evaluate is through forced ranking. Forced ranking places employees into predetermined categories based on their performance (Bethel, 2011). The idea behind forced ranking is to evaluate an employee and determine through that evaluation if they are a performer, need help to develop and have potential, or if the employee is not a performer, in which case the non-performing employee is let go. This process of reviewing employees for their performance gained significant popularity in the 1980’s and quite popular today. There are differing arguments that are for and also against force ranking, but like many other aspects of managing and leading employees, there are pros and cons.

Within my setting a process we use to monitor, evaluate the performance of individuals and teams is appraisals. “All contracted staff should receive some sort of appraisal with their line manager” Daly M el al (2004 p.2070). Appraisals are good process for both managers and the staff team to openly discuss performances and quality of production and output at work. “Appraisals are regular meetings between employers and subordinate, providing a non-threatening routine occasion when work standards cam be discussed and suggestions for improvement can be jointly decided”. Sadek and Sadek (2004 p.134). To carry out a successful appraisal there is a few stages to make sure that all the correct

The two methods I will be using are Simple ranking and forced distribution method. Simple ranking involves managers to rank employees in their team from the highest performer to the poorest performer. The ranking method is easy to use and economical; however it is subjective in that it depends on one person opinion to decide the worth of an employee.

Forced ranking also known as the ‘stacking system’ is a performance rating system that has arguable attracted more attention over the years than any other (Smither & London 2009). While this practice has been widely used by well-known companies such as GE, Sun-Micro Systems and Hewlett-Packard (Grote 2005, cited in Smither & London 2009) it has also been the subject of significant controversy given its rejection by companies such as Xerox and PepsiCo (Olson & Davis 2003). Forced ranking is a performance rating approach synonymous with relative rating (Smither & London 2009). This implies that rather than being appraised independently against a uniform set of performance standards employees are ranked relative to peer performance and slotted into a normal distribution bell curve or a quartile distinction (Grote 2005). This would for example identify employees in the top and bottom 25 per cent (Grote 2005) and enable managers to identify the worst and best performing employees in an organisation. The use of forced ranking as a best practice people management scheme will be evaluated in the sections

Communication: Effective communication is very important because it effects relations and objectives of the organization. Following are the points which tells the relationship between employers and employees

In today’s business world, performance appraisals are still widely used, yet at the same time very criticized. One of the reasons appraisals are criticized is some feel that they are a waste of time and are not value added. Samuel Culbert, author of the book,“Get Rid of Performance Reviews” states, “This corporate sham is one of the most insidious, most damaging, and yet most ubiquitous of corporate activities” (Culbert). He goes on to say that, “Everybody does it, and almost everyone who’s evaluated hates it” (Culbert). He feels that appraisals are worthless and should never be a method used for giving employees feedback. After doing more

It seeks to classify employees within the same group, by comparing their performance levels that are given a numerical value. Moreover, the ranking may also be done by evaluating the performance of an employee against another in a competing group. Hence, it helps the organization to determine its most performing employees and those whose performance may need to be improved. However, in practice, ranking individuals is challenging because they possess unique traits and behavior.

Performance appraisal is the procedure through which employee performance is evaluated, feedback is delivered, and development plans are designed (Youssef, 2012). Therefore, strategic Human Resource Management (HRM) is vital to successful organizational objectives. While the core objective of performance appraisals is the evaluation of employees work performance, organizations utilize performance appraisals for a variety of goals; these include managing salaries, wages, and pay incentives and adjustments. In addition performance appraisals can be performed by management to establish job placement decisions, and to validate employee punitive decisions (Youssef, 2012).

Trent has several facts that he needs to consider about how he handled Ms. Smith’s appraisal. The purpose of the performance appraisal is to advise the employee concerning the value of their performance. Performance appraisals should reinforce the manager and employee relationship. Trent’s method of presenting Smith’s appraisal was discouraging and upsetting because she stormed out of the office. He only stated her weaknesses and hinted that she did not really fit in his department. He did not set any short-term improvement goals and a follow-up date to ascertain if Ms. Smith had shown any improvement. He did not give her a copy of her appraisal. One of the facts that Trent needs to consider is that he did not follow the performance appraisal guidelines. In fact, everyone should receive a copy of their appraisal. Another fact that Trent should consider is that he did not have enough documentation available to confirm that she had an inadequate work performance and an unpleasant attitude. He is basing her performance from his negative personal feelings about Ms. Smith. Trent felt that Ms. Smith was a “problem” employee. If Trent did not record any oral warnings or written reprimands in her record, this is another fact that he needs to consider. He has to record the exact times and dates that he has spoken to Ms. Smith about her attitudes and performance. Additionally, he has to provide specific and objective facts in her employee file to prove that