Performance appraisal systems and practices

Performance Appraisals

The use of the four basic types of appraisal forms is important to ensuring that each form serves a purpose that is useful for specific job types. By using a management/supervisory form, employers can focus on the duties of managers and supervisors in the performance appraisals. Managers are not only responsible for their own work but for the work of their subordinates, so they have special situations that need to be considered during performance appraisals. Forms that target managers and supervisors tend to focus on the individual's accomplishments, managerial style and results.

Forms used for professional and technical workers are targeted to address specific job duties and are more individualized; since these workers are responsible mainly for their own performance, management style and the work of subordinates is not an issue. These forms stress individual accomplishments and results.

The role of the nonexempt worker, or service employee, is typically tailored to a very specialized area of the company, and the duties of service workers are well delineated and specific. Therefore, forms used in performance appraisals focus more on behaviors and traits. These factors are most telling in evaluating nonexempt workers' performance because the jobs are relatively straightforward and success is easily measured and obvious. What makes the difference in these jobs is behavior and attitude.

Executives are in a unique situation in companies because their work is simultaneously managerial, professional, service-oriented and often technical. An executive is basically responsible for everyone else in the company, so performance appraisal forms need to take into account results, behavior, traits, managerial style and accomplishments.

There are several different ways to conduct performance appraisals, and each has both advantages and disadvantages. Having peers, coworkers or customers provide performance appraisal input is valuable in that they are the people who observe an employee's working style, behavior and attitudes most frequently. Coworkers and customers are directly affected by what an employee does or does not do, and they are in a good position to say how effective the employee is being on a daily basis. This type of input can also be valuable because sometimes employees act differently around their peers and customers than they do when the boss is around, so a more accurate view of reality can be obtained. On the other hand, coworkers and customers are not necessarily privy to the bigger picture in terms of the company's goals, and they may not even know what, exactly, an employee's duties are supposed to be. Also, personal perceptions can cloud evaluations from coworkers and customers, and an employee could be penalized for having a bad day rather than being judged on the whole of his or her work.