There are several psychological blocks which work against the effectiveness of an appraisal system. The feedback also recognizes them for their contributions. Appraiser’s social and psychological background like beliefs, values, community, ethical group and the like would form a perceptual set about the appraise. Equally damaging one is assigning consistently low rates. Such concerns tend to make the raters to be lenient. The subjectivity poses problem to the appraisal method, though it cannot be totally avoided. These assumptions work against an appraisal system in the following manner: (a) The assumption that managers will make fair and accurate appraisals of subordinates is untenable. Thus, rating is influenced by most recent behaviour ignoring the commonly demonstrated behaviours during the entire appraisal period. 1. Moreover, they have little to do with the performance of an employee. The rating form may ignore important aspects of job performance. Performance Appraisal Benefits . The purpose of performance evaluation is to provide developmental feedback that will help the employee continue to grow in their skills and ability to contribute to the organization. They do not provide commitments of time and resources from the organization about how they will encourage employees to develop their skills in areas of interest to the employee. The strictness bias is the opposite; it results from raters being too harsh in their evaluation. He will lose his job if I rate him again as a poor performer”. He is an satisfactory supervisor but he does not excel. 2. “He/She is not formally dressed up in the office. Giving someone else an honest candid evaluation based on that measurement is a stressful experience for most evaluators. This problem often occurs with employees who are especially friendly or unfriendly toward the supervisor. “He may not be considered for promotion if I give him poor ratings”. Performance appraisal is generally done in systematic ways which are as follows: The supervisors measure the pay of employees and compare it with targets and plans. The negative perception that is often associated with the performance appraisal is due in part to a feeling of being criticized during the process. You will train employees to hide and cover-up problems. 6. Again, some appraisers are unduly stricter than they should be. In fact, subordinates resist to be appraised and their reaction against appraisal has often been intense. With performance appraisal, however, the purpose of the session is not strictly disciplinary, so the employee is more likely to walk in with a more receptive and open mind. c. Leniency or Strictness Tendency or Constant Error: Depending upon the appraiser’s own value system which acts as a standard, employees may be rated leniently or strictly. Normally, the raters immediate supervisor must approve the ratings. Lack of Objectivity 13. Further, an aggrieved employee is invariably left with a feeling that the superior is arbitrary in his judgement. It's an objective method because the standards are the same for everyone with that job title. It should be one component of your salary setting system. It is a mental picture the rater holds about rate because of the rates sex, age, religion, and caste, etc. reliability and validity of the performance appraisal techniques. Want 5 Tips to Help Managers Improve Performance Appraisals? It has been evidenced that many performance appraisal reports neither motivate the appraisees nor provide effective guidance to them. Biases of this kind can operate without the rater being aware of what is happening or the biases may be conscious and intentional. Hence due to lack of knowledge and skills, the raters may fail to evaluate performance accurately. Problems of Performance Appraisal – 8 Major Problems: Appraiser Discomfort, Lack of Objectivity, Horn Error, Leniency, Central Tendency Error and a Few Others. Elimination of Judgement Errors/Rater Errors: The performance evaluation process becomes a failure due to the occurrences of various errors committed by the raters. Still these may not be valid indicator of what these are intended to assess because of a variety of limitations on their uses. Problems of Performance Appraisal: Problems, Shortcomings  and What it fails? The raters may not be adequately trained to carry out performance management activities. Most part of the appraisal is based on subjectivity. The major problem in performance appraisal is: 1. It is the tendency of many raters to set their rating is excessively influenced by one characteristic rather than on all subsequent characteristics. The leniency error can render a system ineffective. Rating Game 4. Many employees being well aware about this difficulty and knowing the date of evaluation, make their business to be visible and noticed in many positive ways for several weeks in advance. The most common issue with performance appraisal is that a lot is expected from one form of performance appraisal system plan. Usually central tendency is caused by lack of information, or lack of knowledge about the employee and his behaviour the rater wants to avoid commitment or involvement or he may not have sufficient time at his disposal. It occurs when a manager or evaluator bases his or her entire assessment of an employee or applicant on the first impression that the employee or applicant made. The appropriate facilities and equipment change the criteria of performance appraisal. It is what performance feedback needs to do—respond nimbly and with serious responsiveness in a timely manner. The systemic problems are rarely under the control of one manager. which are normally of little significance for the achievement of organizational goals. This results when the amount of output is influenced by factors beyond the control of employees. It is designed primarily to cover rank and file personnel on the other hand, performance appraisal mainly focuses on the performance and future potential of their employee. If the appraiser is lenient, he/she cannot identify some deficiencies that can otherwise be corrected after identification. In turn, this can lead to defensive behaviour on the part of the evaluator if the rating must be defended. Halo errors mainly occur in immeasurable or subjective features such as obedience, sobriety, devotion, etc. Not fair, too generic, not frequent enough, they say. What a lost opportunity if a manager uses the meeting in any other way. In such circumstances, a comparison of the performance of two employees will have limitations. Supervisors were often confused due to too many objectives of performance appraisal. She has covered HR for The Balance Careers since 2000. 9. There are certain barriers which work against the effectiveness of appraisal system. Other reasons may be ascribed to appraiser discomfort, lack of objectivity, halo error, leniency or strictness, central tendency error, recent behaviour bias, personal bias (stereotyping), and manipulating the evaluation. Sometimes the raters may not be competent to do the evaluations owing to a poor self-image and lack of self-confidence. He fails to meet schedules. They feel that their work and performance is continuously under scanner, which negatively impacts their morale and creates tension and frustration. Performance appraisal systems are subject to many errors. Confusing Performance and Potential 3. By using a set of standard rating standards for each employee, you can help guarantee integrity in the process. Engagement reviews may bring in an additional dimension of relevant performance indices, which can be a useful process of letting employees understand their opportunity areas and work towards developing them. Some rate on potential rather than on recently observed performance. Formal appraisal is conducted generally once in a year. Ranking employees instead of using a graphic rating scale can avoid this central tendency problem because all employees must be ranked and this cannot all be rated averages. Another may see the individual only at the staff meetings where the employee is uncomfortable and does not show to best advantage. An individual’s approach towards work speaks the volumes about his/her contribution to the organization and the best way to assess an employee’s productivity. Previous performance ratings of the-appraise, when made available to the appraiser, would influence the mindset of the-appraise while appraising the current performance. Content Filtration 6. 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