Human Resources

ELIMINATING RATE ERROR:   Appraisal training focus on elimination of errors made by managers in rating process. Types of errors that can arise: “halo error” REDUCTION: Provision for comments in the rating. “Horn error” when a manager focuses on one negative aspect about an employee and generalizes it into an overall poor appraisal rating. Distributional errors: Error of central –performance-rating error in which all employees are rated about average. Reduction: explain to raters that because of the large group there should be differences. Leniency or strictness error -appraiser tends to give either unusually high or unusually low ratings. Reduction: define the characteristics or dimensions of performance and provide meaningful descriptions of behavior ”anchors” on the scale. – Forced ranking   (place certain % of employees into various performance categories and make curve) – Peer ranking (employees in a work group are ranked against one another from best to worst) [these can create other rating errors] Temporal errors: Recency error: appraisal based on the employee’s most recent behavior rather than on behavior throughout the appraisal period. Reduction: Having rater routinely document employee accomplishments and failures throughout the whole appraisal period. Contrast error: employee’s evaluation is biased either upward or downward because of comparison with another employee previously evaluated. Reduction: training that focuses in using objective standards and behavioral anchors to appraise performance. Similar-to-me-error: appraiser inflates the evaluation of an employee because of a mutual personal connection -can result in discrimination. PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL METHODS: technical improvements and legal requirements are more consistent with the purposes of appraisal. TRAIT METHODS: Graphic Rating Scales: each employee is rated according to a scale of characteristics. Variations of the graphing rating scale (1) characteristics or dimensions on which individuals... [continues]

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