essay evaluation method of performance appraisal

What is the Essay Method for Performance Appraisals?

While some would label it as the “grandfather” of performance appraisal methods, the essay method is still a commonly used appraisal method in a variety of business models. The essay method, sometimes known as the “free-form method,” is a performance review system where a superior creates a written review of the employee’s performance.

These essays are meant to describe and record an employee’s strengths and weaknesses in job performance, identifying problem areas and creating a plan of action to remedy them. Whether the essay is written by the appraiser alone, or in collaboration with the appraisee, essays provide supervisors the opportunity to assess behaviors and performance with greater complexity and attention to detail.

There are many reasons that the essay method--which was one of the first methods used to evaluate performance--is still effective today.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of essay appraisals is their free-form approach to performance reviews. Whereas some employers can feel limited by rigid performance appraisal criteria, the essay method takes a far less structured stance than typical rating scale methods. In so doing, the appraiser is able to examine any relevant issue or attribute of performance that is pertinent to an employee’s job description or overall company growth.

The essay method assumes that not all employee traits and behaviors can be neatly analyzed, dissected, and rated--instead, it allows appraisers to place varied degrees of emphasis on certain qualities, issues, or attributes that are appropriate. Rather than being locked into a fixed system, this open-ended method gives supervisors the freedom of expression and critical thought. For appraisers, there exist special services such as StudyCrumb , which help in writing accurate essays.

When preparing an essay, a supervisor may consider any of the following factors of an employee as they relate to the company and employee relationship: potential and job knowledge, understanding of the company’s policies, relationships with peers and supervisors, planning and organization, and general attitudes and perceptions. This thorough, non-quantitative assessment provides a good deal more information about an employee than most other performance appraisal techniques.

However, as with all performance appraisal methods, there are a few limitations that the essay method suffers from that are worth examining.

One of the major drawbacks of the essay method is its highly subjective nature--they are often subject to bias, and it can be difficult to separate the assessment of the employee from the bias of the evaluator. While the essay can provide a good deal of information about the employee, it tends to tell more about the evaluator than the one being evaluated.

Another element that essays leave out (that other appraisal methods rely heavily on) is comparative results. Instead of utilizing standardized, numeric questions, these appraisals rely only on open-ended questions. While the essay method gives managers the ability to provide detailed and circumstantial information on a specific employee’s performance, it removes the component of comparing performance with other employees. This often makes it difficult for HR to distinguish top performers.

Overall, the appraisal method’s greatest advantage--the freedom of expression for the evaluator--can also serve as its greatest handicap. Even the actual writing of the reviews can upset or distort the process of employee appraisals, as the introduction of inconsistent, unorganized, or poor writing styles can distort and upset the review process. An employee may be unfairly helped or harmed by an evaluator’s writing ability. An evaluator can also find themselves lacking sufficient time to prepare the essay, and can write an essay hurriedly without accurately assessing an employee’s performance.

What is the essay method best used for?

Appraisal by essay is generally most effective in performance reviews for employees with atypical job descriptions or non-numerical goals. While other appraisals work well in analyzing performance for jobs that are subject to goals based on numbers, essays offer a more subjective analysis of performance for employees with managerial or customer service positions.

When analyzing production, the essay method is most effective in combination with another appraisal method. Using a graphic rating scale along with essay appraisals allows one method to focus solely on numbers, while the essay portion can be used to analyze other performance goals.

Doing essay appraisals right

Here are 3 things to strive for in order to set your company up for success in essay performance appraisals:

• Consistency.

Keeping a standard for style and length of essay appraisals can make the biggest difference in ensuring that your reviews are effective. Essays that are unstructured and unnecessarily complex can be detrimental to an employee’s rating, as well as using unspecific, flowery language that is not relevant to the employee’s performance. In order to remain efficient and effective, today’s evaluators should focus on making appraisal essays short and specific, ensuring that the entire review reflects the performance of the employee.

The appraiser should also ensure that they are making sufficient time in their schedule to prepare the essay. A busy evaluator may compromise an employee’s performance rating by writing a hurried essay, or running out of time to thoroughly assess employee performance. It’s important for all participants of essay appraisals to take enough time to write a consistent, accurate, and succinct review in order to set employees up for success.

2. Proficiency.

If you’ve chosen to use essay appraisals in your organization, it’s important to ensure that your appraisers possess the ability to write well. Even if an essay contains detailed, circumstantial information, it becomes difficult to extract valuable data from a poorly written essay. To ensure that nothing stands between an HR professional’s ability to assess an employee’s performance, evaluators should be trained as well-equipped writers.

Giving writing assistant tools or tips to supervisors can make all the difference in the accuracy and efficiency of an employee’s performance review.

2. Objectivity.

Subjectivity is both a strength and a weakness in essay appraisals. Not only are essays themselves often biased, but the misinterpretation of essays can even further distance the main evaluator from an accurate portrayal of an employee’s performance. Including objective standards in a performance review results in a more balanced and productive review process, and helps to eliminate the forming of incorrect conclusions about an employee’s behavior and performance.

Organizations often implement this goal by pairing essay appraisals with another appraisal method, such as graphic scale ratings, to draw more accurate conclusions and performance data. In so doing, evaluators can utilize all of the free expression and open-ended characteristics of an essay appraisal, while still maintaining accurate, easily translated results that are effective for the overall organization.

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The Essay Method of Performance Appraisal

by Danielle Smyth

Published on 9 Aug 2019

The question of how to effectively gauge an employee’s performance on the job has been answered many times in many different ways, but there’s certainly no one agreed-upon method recommended by the human resources industry. Most experts agree that performance management is a critical part of having a successful business in today’s world and that effectively managing, developing and evaluating employees leads to a more efficient workforce and better company culture.

However, it’s deciding how to implement it within a certain company structure that can be challenging, and implementation is key to keeping the process effective rather than disruptive. The essay method of performance appraisal can be a great choice due to its thorough, thoughtful and unobtrusive nature.

Secrets to Effective Performance Appraisals

The truth is that effective performance appraisals take time. They take up the manager’s time, the employee’s time and the time of human resources, and they can potentially take up the time of teammates and co-workers who are asked about projects and collaboration.

For them to mean something, the process needs to be taken seriously, but that always must be balanced against the forward motion of the company and the day-to-day workloads of the employees in question.

Methods of Performance Appraisal

There are a number of methods used in today’s industries to evaluate employees. All of them require some sort of performance standard to be set at first and then an evaluation over a set period of time against that standard.

Some methods of review can be more effective than others, but some also require more dedicated time and thought from the manager or other evaluator. Some of the more common methods include the checklist method, the comparison or forced distribution method and the essay method.

Checklist Method of Performance Appraisal

With the checklist method, an employee is judged against a list of criteria. The criteria have been developed for the level or job of the employee, and usually all employees at similar levels are evaluated against it.

• Yes/no checklists simply ask the evaluator to determine whether the employee exhibits the behavior defined in each criterion: for example, “comes to work on time,” “frequently contributes to group discussions” or “meets daily safety requirements.” It’s important to make sure that all criteria are phrased so that a "yes" is the desired answer because it can be very easy to confuse an evaluation when this isn’t the case. This provides a very simple and straightforward way of judging performance but won’t get into much nuance of individual strengths and weaknesses and may not do much to differentiate one employee from another.
• Leveled checklists ask the evaluator to rate the employee on some sort of scale for each criterion. This could be a scale from one to five where five is optimal, or it could be a verbal scale with levels like “needs improvement,” “meets expectations” and “exceeds expectations.” Criteria might be “completes work within the timeline,” “collaborates with other departments” or “shows technical expertise.” These scaled ratings provide more nuance into each individual employee and should help highlight strengths as well as areas for improvement, but they require the manager to take more time to understand the performance within the department.

Comparison or Forced Distribution Methods

Comparison or forced distribution methods rate employees comparatively and against each other. This can be done in cases where an organization is rather flat, and it makes sense to compare a collection of employees together. The downside is that it can create a false sense of competition within employee groups or can result in bad attitudes.

• Paired evaluations give the evaluator a set of employee comparisons and asks him to choose who is the better employee. This is normally done within a department. For example, a department of four employees would end up with six pairs for comparison, and the evaluator (or team) would then select the best employee within each pair. For larger departments, this can be time consuming for the evaluators.
• Rankings simply ask the evaluator to rank employees from best to worst. This method is fully based on the perception of the evaluator and is not entirely popular because it is not systematic and can be easily affected by undiscovered bias on the part of the evaluator. It is, however, relatively easy to do for any manager who knows the team well.
• Forced distribution methods focus on the fact that most evaluators tend to rate their employees well. It requires the evaluators to meet a set distribution within their evaluations such that each evaluation finds poor performers as well as excellent ones. While this can be a way to identify areas for improvement, it can also be read as having to meet a quota with ratings, which can lead to dissent.

Essay Evaluation Method

The essay method is a fairly straightforward approach in which the manager or evaluator writes a descriptive essay about each employee. The essay would cover the employees' achievements throughout the evaluation period as well as their strengths and weaknesses. The essay format gives the evaluators the flexibility to focus on whatever they personally find important about the individual’s performance.

However, the essay method can be time consuming for the manager, and it requires a certain level of writing skill for the evaluation to be meaningful. It also is unlikely to be systematic, which can make it difficult to compare evaluations from person to person.

Performance Appraisal Essays

The performance evaluation essay is maybe the most interesting of the methods, as it allows a manager to genuinely express thoughts about the employee in question rather than having to work with a template or list of criteria or comparisons.

There are advantages to this, mainly in allowing the appraisers to focus on what they feel is important for each individual whom they are evaluating. The downside of this apparent freedom is because the entire essay is subjective based on the evaluator’s approach, it becomes difficult to obtain any big-picture conclusions about the department, and it can be difficult to compare employees within a certain group.

The key to a successful performance appraisal essay is the writing skills of the person assembling it . Her attention to basic essay structure and her descriptions of the behaviors on which she focuses will determine whether the right message will get across during the evaluation, both to the employee and to the team of other managers and human resources employees who may be involved with ratings, promotions and improvement plans. Some attention to basic essay-writing principles should help the evaluator construct an essay that will be meaningful to all parties involved.

" id="basic-essay-writing " class="title"> Basic Essay Writing

The following are essential to the writing of an effective performance appraisal essay:

• Preparation: For any essay, the first step is to gather information about the topic at hand. In this case, the manager should take the time to review past performance, current expectations and future needs for each employee whom he intends to evaluate. Review the employee’s achievements this year and examine reports and project records to get a full picture of performance.
• Evaluation: Once the information is at hand, it’s important to spend time connecting the dots to figure out what story the essay needs to tell about the employee’s performance. Identify any changes in the employee’s performance over the evaluation period and establish a list containing the behaviors that have been commendable and in which areas the employee could use improvement.
• Creation: Construct the essay in a manner that suits the manager’s writing style. Be sure to use professional, fair language and describe in words the successes and challenges of the employee’s work over this time period. 

Writing the Essay

The essay should open with an introduction summarizing the work completed by the employee during the evaluation period. Be sure to note key projects and pay attention to ongoing work as well as completed jobs. This is the time to discuss what the employee has done and recognize his overall contribution to the business. For example:

Jon successfully supported the infrastructure team, the McAce project and the office renovations project with technical drawings and materials lists as requested. He personally was able to complete the ventilation upgrade project, which ran over schedule but came in under budget. He submitted all monthly reports on time and took a training course this year to improve his skills at AutoCAD.

Highlight Employee Successes

The next portion of the essay should highlight some real successes for the employee. Mention his strengths and any areas where he has shown visible improvement over past performance. In this portion, focus less on what was done and more on how it was done. To continue the example:

Jon’s skill at estimation has improved greatly over the past year, with only one of his personal projects running over budget (as compared to at least 50 percent the previous year). This makes it much easier for the department to manage our overall budget appropriately and is greatly appreciated. Jon has been described as “friendly” and “personable” by his teammates, who have no problem approaching him when they need a drawing or have a question. He also had huge success with his contributions to the McAce project, which would have fallen behind schedule without his work.

Outline Areas for Improvement

After calling out successes, take some time to consider areas in which the employee needs improvement. For employees currently meeting all expectations, consider their future career path: Are there areas they need to develop in order to move into a new position? For employees whose performance may not be up to par, try to address it fairly and be straightforward and logical.

A number of Jon’s projects ran over schedule this year. It appears that Jon’s technical understanding of the work at hand could perhaps use some development. One such corrective action might be making sure to check with operators and maintenance personnel before launching a new project concept to make sure the problem at hand is actually being solved. Also, while Jon’s open personality makes him approachable, it can also lead to Jon taking extra-long breaks for conversation throughout the day, which can disturb some employees from their work.

Note that the criticisms are couched calmly in specific language that isn’t accusatory or angry and that the behaviors described correlate to an undesirable outcome. In some cases, a corrective action should be suggested. In other cases, it’s best to wait until the final step and develop a path forward with the employee in question.

" id="create-a-forward-plan " class="title"> Create a Forward Plan

The essay should end with a forward plan for the employee, involving any additional training or development she may need to meet current expectations as well as some sort of idea of the next step in her career.

The final step in the performance assessment essay is, of course, reviewing the essay with each employee. It’s best to give the employee a chance to read the evaluation and then open the floor to any questions the employee might have about what’s been written.

If an employee wants to challenge an assertion, she can be encouraged to write a short essay in return discussing why she might disagree with the essay. It’s important to discuss the successes and give recognition where it’s due as well as the challenges in order to ensure the employee understands.

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11.2 Appraisal Methods

Learning objective.

• Be able to describe the various appraisal methods.

It probably goes without saying that different industries and jobs need different kinds of appraisal methods. For our purposes, we will discuss some of the main ways to assess performance in a performance evaluation form. Of course, these will change based upon the job specifications for each position within the company. In addition to industry-specific and job-specific methods, many organizations will use these methods in combination, as opposed to just one method. There are three main methods of determining performance. The first is the trait method , in which managers look at an employee’s specific traits in relation to the job, such as friendliness to the customer. The behavioral method looks at individual actions within a specific job. Comparative methods compare one employee with other employees. Results methods are focused on employee accomplishments, such as whether or not employees met a quota.

Within the categories of performance appraisals, there are two main aspects to appraisal methods. First, the criteria are the aspects the employee is actually being evaluated on, which should be tied directly to the employee᾿s job description. Second, the rating is the type of scale that will be used to rate each criterion in a performance evaluation: for example, scales of 1–5, essay ratings, or yes/no ratings. Tied to the rating and criteria is the weighting each item will be given. For example, if “communication” and “interaction with client” are two criteria, the interaction with the client may be weighted more than communication, depending on the job type. We will discuss the types of criteria and rating methods next.

Graphic Rating Scale

The graphic rating scale , a behavioral method, is perhaps the most popular choice for performance evaluations. This type of evaluation lists traits required for the job and asks the source to rate the individual on each attribute. A discrete scale is one that shows a number of different points. The ratings can include a scale of 1–10; excellent, average, or poor; or meets, exceeds, or doesn’t meet expectations, for example. A continuous scale shows a scale and the manager puts a mark on the continuum scale that best represents the employee’s performance. For example:

The disadvantage of this type of scale is the subjectivity that can occur. This type of scale focuses on behavioral traits and is not specific enough to some jobs. Development of specific criteria can save an organization in legal costs. For example, in Thomas v. IBM , IBM was able to successfully defend accusations of age discrimination because of the objective criteria the employee (Thomas) had been rated on.

Many organizations use a graphic rating scale in conjunction with other appraisal methods to further solidify the tool’s validity. For example, some organizations use a mixed standard scale , which is similar to a graphic rating scale. This scale includes a series of mixed statements representing excellent, average, and poor performance, and the manager is asked to rate a “+” (performance is better than stated), “0” (performance is at stated level), or “−” (performance is below stated level). Mixed standard statements might include the following:

• The employee gets along with most coworkers and has had only a few interpersonal issues.
• This employee takes initiative.
• The employee consistently turns in below-average work.
• The employee always meets established deadlines.

An example of a graphic rating scale is shown in Figure 11.1 “Example of Graphic Rating Scale” .

Essay Appraisal

In an essay appraisal , the source answers a series of questions about the employee’s performance in essay form. This can be a trait method and/or a behavioral method, depending on how the manager writes the essay. These statements may include strengths and weaknesses about the employee or statements about past performance. They can also include specific examples of past performance. The disadvantage of this type of method (when not combined with other rating systems) is that the manager’s writing ability can contribute to the effectiveness of the evaluation. Also, managers may write less or more, which means less consistency between performance appraisals by various managers.

Checklist Scale

A checklist method for performance evaluations lessens the subjectivity, although subjectivity will still be present in this type of rating system. With a checklist scale , a series of questions is asked and the manager simply responds yes or no to the questions, which can fall into either the behavioral or the trait method, or both. Another variation to this scale is a check mark in the criteria the employee meets, and a blank in the areas the employee does not meet. The challenge with this format is that it doesn’t allow more detailed answers and analysis of the performance criteria, unless combined with another method, such as essay ratings. A sample of a checklist scale is provided in Figure 11.3 “Example of Checklist Scale” .

Figure 11.1 Example of Graphic Rating Scale

Figure 11.2 Example of Essay Rating

Figure 11.3 Example of Checklist Scale

Critical Incident Appraisals

This method of appraisal, while more time-consuming for the manager, can be effective at providing specific examples of behavior. With a critical incident appraisal , the manager records examples of the employee’s effective and ineffective behavior during the time period between evaluations, which is in the behavioral category. When it is time for the employee to be reviewed, the manager will pull out this file and formally record the incidents that occurred over the time period. The disadvantage of this method is the tendency to record only negative incidents instead of postive ones. However, this method can work well if the manager has the proper training to record incidents (perhaps by keeping a weekly diary) in a fair manner. This approach can also work well when specific jobs vary greatly from week to week, unlike, for example, a factory worker who routinely performs the same weekly tasks.

Work Standards Approach

For certain jobs in which productivity is most important, a work standards approach could be the more effective way of evaluating employees. With this results-focused approach, a minimum level is set and the employee’s performance evaluation is based on this level. For example, if a sales person does not meet a quota of $1 million, this would be recorded as nonperforming. The downside is that this method does not allow for reasonable deviations. For example, if the quota isn’t made, perhaps the employee just had a bad month but normally performs well. This approach works best in long-term situations, in which a reasonable measure of performance can be over a certain period of time. This method is also used in manufacuring situations where production is extremely important. For example, in an automotive assembly line, the focus is on how many cars are built in a specified period, and therefore, employee performance is measured this way, too. Since this approach is centered on production, it doesn’t allow for rating of other factors, such as ability to work on a team or communication skills, which can be an important part of the job, too.

Ranking Methods

In a ranking method system (also called stack ranking), employees in a particular department are ranked based on their value to the manager or supervisor. This system is a comparative method for performance evaluations.The manager will have a list of all employees and will first choose the most valuable employee and put that name at the top. Then he or she will choose the least valuable employee and put that name at the bottom of the list. With the remaining employees, this process would be repeated. Obviously, there is room for bias with this method, and it may not work well in a larger organization, where managers may not interact with each employee on a day-to-day basis.

To make this type of evaluation most valuable (and legal), each supervisor should use the same criteria to rank each individual. Otherwise, if criteria are not clearly developed, validity and halo effects could be present. The Roper v. Exxon Corp case illustrates the need for clear guidelines when using a ranking system. At Exxon, the legal department attorneys were annually evaluated and then ranked based on input from attorneys, supervisors, and clients. Based on the feedback, each attorney for Exxon was ranked based on their relative contribution and performance. Each attorney was given a group percentile rank (i.e., 99 percent was the best-performing attorney). When Roper was in the bottom 10 percent for three years and was informed of his separation with the company, he filed an age discrimination lawsuit. The courts found no correlation between age and the lowest-ranking individuals, and because Exxon had a set of established ranking criteria, they won the case (Grote, 2005).

Another consideration is the effect on employee morale should the rankings be made public. If they are not made public, morale issues may still exist, as the perception might be that management has “secret” documents.

Fortune 500 Focus

Critics have long said that a forced ranking system can be detrimental to morale; it focuses too much on individual performance as opposed to team performance. Some say a forced ranking system promotes too much competition in the workplace. However, many Fortune 500 companies use this system and have found it works for their culture. General Electric (GE) used perhaps one of the most well-known forced ranking systems. In this system, every year managers placed their employees into one of three categories: “A” employees are the top 20 percent, “B” employees are the middle 70 percent, and “C” performers are the bottom 10 percent. In GE’s system, the bottom 10 percent are usually either let go or put on a performance plan. The top 20 percent are given more responsibility and perhaps even promoted. However, even GE has reinvented this stringent forced ranking system. In 2006, it changed the system to remove references to the 20/70/10 split, and GE now presents the curve as a guideline. This gives more freedom for managers to distribute employees in a less stringent manner 1 .

The advantages of a forced ranking system include that it creates a high-performance work culture and establishes well-defined consequences for not meeting performance standards. In recent research, a forced ranking system seems to correlate well with return on investment to shareholders. For example, the study (Sprenkel, 2011) shows that companies who use individual criteria (as opposed to overall performance) to measure performance outperform those who measure performance based on overall company success. To make a ranking system work, it is key to ensure managers have a firm grasp on the criteria on which employees will be ranked. Companies using forced rankings without set criteria open themselves to lawsuits, because it would appear the rankings happen based on favoritism rather than quantifiable performance data. For example, Ford in the past used forced ranking systems but eliminated the system after settling class action lawsuits that claimed discrimination (Lowery, 2011). Conoco also has settled lawsuits over its forced ranking systems, as domestic employees claimed the system favored foreign workers (Lowery, 2011). To avoid these issues, the best way to develop and maintain a forced ranking system is to provide each employee with specific and measurable objectives, and also provide management training so the system is executed in a fair, quantifiable manner.

In a forced distribution system, like the one used by GE, employees are ranked in groups based on high performers, average performers, and nonperformers. The trouble with this system is that it does not consider that all employees could be in the top two categories, high or average performers, and requires that some employees be put in the nonperforming category.

In a paired comparison system, the manager must compare every employee with every other employee within the department or work group. Each employee is compared with another, and out of the two, the higher performer is given a score of 1. Once all the pairs are compared, the scores are added. This method takes a lot of time and, again, must have specific criteria attached to it when comparing employees.

Human Resource Recall

How can you make sure the performance appraisal ties into a specific job description?

Management by Objectives (MBO)

Management by objectives (MBOs) is a concept developed by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book The Practice of Management (Drucker, 2006). This method is results oriented and similar to the work standards approach, with a few differences. First, the manager and employee sit down together and develop objectives for the time period. Then when it is time for the performance evaluation, the manager and employee sit down to review the goals that were set and determine whether they were met. The advantage of this is the open communication between the manager and the employee. The employee also has “buy-in” since he or she helped set the goals, and the evaluation can be used as a method for further skill development. This method is best applied for positions that are not routine and require a higher level of thinking to perform the job. To be efficient at MBOs, the managers and employee should be able to write strong objectives. To write objectives, they should be SMART (Doran, 1981):

• Specific. There should be one key result for each MBO. What is the result that should be achieved?
• Measurable. At the end of the time period, it should be clear if the goal was met or not. Usually a number can be attached to an objective to make it measurable, for example “sell $1,000,000 of new business in the third quarter.”
• Attainable. The objective should not be impossible to attain. It should be challenging, but not impossible.
• Result oriented. The objective should be tied to the company’s mission and values. Once the objective is made, it should make a difference in the organization as a whole.
• Time limited. The objective should have a reasonable time to be accomplished, but not too much time.

Setting MBOs with Employees

(click to see video)

An example of how to work with an employee to set MBOs.

To make MBOs an effective performance evaluation tool, it is a good idea to train managers and determine which job positions could benefit most from this type of method. You may find that for some more routine positions, such as administrative assistants, another method could work better.

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)

A BARS method first determines the main performance dimensions of the job, for example, interpersonal relationships. Then the tool utilizes narrative information, such as from a critical incidents file, and assigns quantified ranks to each expected behavior. In this system, there is a specific narrative outlining what exemplifies a “good” and “poor” behavior for each category. The advantage of this type of system is that it focuses on the desired behaviors that are important to complete a task or perform a specific job. This method combines a graphic rating scale with a critical incidents system. The US Army Research Institute (Phillips, et. al., 2006) developed a BARS scale to measure the abilities of tactical thinking skills for combat leaders. Figure 11.4 “Example of BARS” provides an example of how the Army measures these skills.

Figure 11.4 Example of BARS

Figure 11.5 More Examples of Performance Appraisal Types

How Would You Handle This?

Playing Favorites

You were just promoted to manager of a high-end retail store. As you are sorting through your responsibilities, you receive an e-mail from HR outlining the process for performance evaluations. You are also notified that you must give two performance evaluations within the next two weeks. This concerns you, because you don’t know any of the employees and their abilities yet. You aren’t sure if you should base their performance on what you see in a short time period or if you should ask other employees for their thoughts on their peers’ performance. As you go through the files on the computer, you find a critical incident file left from the previous manager, and you think this might help. As you look through it, it is obvious the past manager had “favorite” employees and you aren’t sure if you should base the evaluations on this information. How would you handle this?

Table 11.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Each Performance Appraisal Method

Key Takeaways

• When developing performance appraisal criteria, it is important to remember the criteria should be job specific and industry specific.
• The performance appraisal criteria should be based on the job specifications of each specific job. General performance criteria are not an effective way to evaluate an employee.
• The rating is the scale that will be used to evaluate each criteria item. There are a number of different rating methods, including scales of 1–5, yes or no questions, and essay.
• In a graphic rating performance evaluation, employees are rated on certain desirable attributes. A variety of rating scales can be used with this method. The disadvantage is possible subjectivity.
• An essay performance evaluation will ask the manager to provide commentary on specific aspects of the employee’s job performance.
• A checklist utilizes a yes or no rating selection, and the criteria are focused on components of the employee’s job.
• Some managers keep a critical incidents file . These incidents serve as specific examples to be written about in a performance appraisal. The downside is the tendency to record only negative incidents and the time it can take to record this.
• The work standards performance appraisal approach looks at minimum standards of productivity and rates the employee performance based on minimum expectations. This method is often used for sales forces or manufacturing settings where productivity is an important aspect.
• In a ranking performance evaluation system, the manager ranks each employee from most valuable to least valuable. This can create morale issues within the workplace.
• An MBO or management by objectives system is where the manager and employee sit down together, determine objectives, then after a period of time, the manager assesses whether those objectives have been met. This can create great development opportunities for the employee and a good working relationship between the employee and manager.
• An MBO’s objectives should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, results oriented, and time limited.
• A BARS approach uses a rating scale but provides specific narratives on what constitutes good or poor performance.

Review each of the appraisal methods and discuss which one you might use for the following types of jobs, and discuss your choices.

• Administrative Assistant
• Chief Executive Officer
• Human Resource Manager
• Retail Store Assistant Manager

1 “The Struggle to Measure Performance,” BusinessWeek , January 9, 2006, accessed August 15, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_02/b3966060.htm .

Doran, G. T., “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives,” Management Review 70, no. 11 (1981): 35.

Drucker, P., The Practice of Management (New York: Harper, 2006).

Grote, R., Forced Ranking: Making Performance Management Work (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005).

Lowery, M., “Forcing the Issue,” Human Resource Executive Online , n.d., accessed August 15, 2011, http://www.hrexecutive.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=4222111&query=ranks .

Phillips, J., Jennifer Shafter, Karol Ross, Donald Cox, and Scott Shadrick, Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales for the Assessment of Tactical Thinking Mental Models (Research Report 1854), June 2006, US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, accessed August 15, 2011, http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari/pdf/RR1854.pdf .

Sprenkel, L., “Forced Ranking: A Good Thing for Business?” Workforce Management, n.d., accessed August 15, 2011, http://homepages.uwp.edu/crooker/790-iep-pm/Articles/meth-fd-workforce.pdf .

Human Resource Management Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

The Essay Method of Performance Appraisal

Master the Essay Method of Performance Appraisal! Explore its strengths, weaknesses, best practices, and discover how to craft effective essays for employee development.

In the ever-evolving landscape of performance management, selecting the right appraisal method is crucial for fostering employee growth and organizational success. among the various approaches, the essay method stands out for its flexibility and narrative-based evaluation. this comprehensive guide delves into the intricacies of the essay method, equipping managers and hr professionals with the knowledge to leverage its strengths and navigate its potential pitfalls., understanding the essay method.

The Essay Method, also known as the Free-Form Method, empowers supervisors to create a written evaluation of an employee's performance. This evaluation takes the form of a narrative essay, detailing the employee's strengths, weaknesses, accomplishments, and areas for improvement. Unlike structured methods with predetermined ratings, the Essay Method allows for a more nuanced and qualitative assessment.

Key Features of the Essay Method:

• Flexibility: The Essay Method isn't constrained by rigid formats or rating scales. It allows appraisers to tailor the evaluation to the specific role, accomplishments, and development needs of the employee.
• Narrative format: The essay format fosters a story-telling approach, enabling appraisers to provide context and specific examples to support their observations.
• Focus on strengths and weaknesses: The essay delves into both the employee's strengths, which contribute positively to performance, and identifies areas where improvement is necessary.
• Development-oriented: The Essay Method encourages a forward-looking perspective by incorporating suggestions for professional development and goal setting.

Advantages of the Essay Method

The Essay Method offers several benefits for both managers and employees:

• Rich and detailed feedback: The essay format allows for in-depth descriptions of an employee's performance, providing valuable insights beyond numerical scores.
• Customization: The Essay Method can be easily adapted to various job roles and departmental needs, ensuring a more relevant evaluation.
• Open communication: The narrative format fosters open communication between managers and employees, allowing for a two-way dialogue about performance and development.
• Identification of potential: The essay can go beyond immediate performance to identify an employee's potential for future growth and leadership roles.

Potential Challenges of the Essay Method

While the Essay Method offers distinct advantages, it also presents certain challenges:

• Subjectivity: The absence of standardized ratings can lead to subjectivity in evaluations. Mitigating this risk requires clear performance expectations and training for appraisers.
• Time-consuming: Crafting a well-written essay can be time-consuming for busy managers. Utilizing templates and focusing on key points can streamline the process.
• Inconsistent evaluations: Without a standardized format, evaluations might lack consistency across different managers. Training, performance standards, and peer review can help maintain consistency.
• Bias: Unconscious bias can creep into the appraisal process. Managers need to be aware of their biases and strive for objectivity in their evaluations.

Best Practices for Using the Essay Method

To maximize the effectiveness of the Essay Method, consider these best practices:

• Establish Clear Performance Standards: Define clear and measurable performance expectations for each role before conducting the evaluation. This provides a framework for the essay and ensures alignment with organizational goals.
• Focus on Specific Examples: Back up observations with concrete examples of the employee's behavior, achievements, and areas for improvement.
• Maintain Objectivity: Strive for a neutral and objective tone, avoiding subjective opinions and focusing on observable facts.
• Maintain a Balance: Present a balanced picture of the employee's performance, highlighting strengths, weaknesses, and development opportunities.
• Set SMART Goals: Establish Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals for the employee's development based on the evaluation.
• Facilitate Open Dialogue: Schedule a meeting with the employee to discuss the evaluation, allowing for open communication and questions.
• Utilize Templates: Develop templates or outlines to guide the essay writing process and ensure consistency across evaluations.
• Training for Appraisers: Provide training for managers and supervisors on the Essay Method, including best practices for writing effective essays and minimizing bias.

Additional Tips:

• Maintain a professional tone throughout the essay.
• Use clear and concise language, avoiding jargon and technical terms.
• Proofread the essay carefully before finalizing it.

By following this structure and incorporating the best practices outlined earlier, you can craft an effective performance essay that provides valuable feedback and fosters employee development. Remember, the Essay Method, when used thoughtfully, can be a powerful tool for fostering open communication, setting clear expectations, and ultimately, driving  employee and organizational success.

BUS603: Managing People

Employee Assessment

Appraisal methods, essay appraisal.

In an   essay appraisal , the source answers a series of questions about the employee's performance in essay form. This can be a trait method and/or a behavioral method, depending on how the manager writes the essay. These statements may include strengths and weaknesses about the employee or statements about past performance. They can also include specific examples of past performance. The disadvantage of this type of method (when not combined with other rating systems) is that the manager's writing ability can contribute to the effectiveness of the evaluation. Also, managers may write less or more, which means less consistency between performance appraisals by various managers.

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8.6 Performance Appraisal Methods

In this section, we will discuss some of the main methods used to assess performance. However, before discussing these methods, we must discuss how they approach the assessment of individual performance. Some methods focus on the employee’s specific traits in relation to the job. For these methods, the objective is to capture whether or not the employees possess the KSAO’s required for the job. An example would be to assess whether a salesperson is outgoing or whether the accounts payable clerks are conscientious and pay attention to detail.

Another way to approach the assessment of performance is to look at individual actions within a specific job. This focus on behaviour, for example, would try to measure whether the salesperson uses a certain protocol when approaching customers or whether the accounts payable clerk follows up on her phone calls. The focus is on ‘what employees actually do’ as opposed to ‘who the employee is’ (for the trait methods). Comparative methods compare one employee with other employees. Finally, results methods are focused on objective employee accomplishments. Note that many organizations will use these methods in combination.

Graphic Rating Scale

The graphic rating scale , a trait method, is perhaps the most popular choice for performance evaluations. This type of evaluation lists the traits required for the job and asks the source to rate the individual on each attribute such as dependability and creativity. For example, the ratings can include a scale of 1–10; excellent, average, or poor; or exceeds, meets, or does not meet expectations.

The disadvantage of this type of scale is that it is quite subjective. Thus, many organizations use a graphic rating scale in conjunction with other appraisal methods to further solidify the tool’s validity. For example, some organizations use a mixed standard scale, which is similar to a graphic rating scale. This scale includes a series of mixed statements representing excellent, average, and poor performance, and the manager is asked to rate a “+” (performance is better than stated), “0” (performance is at stated level), or “−” (performance is below stated level). Mixed standard statements might include the following:

• The employee gets along with most coworkers and has had only a few interpersonal issues.
• This employee takes initiative.
• The employee consistently turns in below-average work.
• The employee always meets established deadlines.

Essay Appraisal

In an essay appraisal , the evaluator answers a series of questions about the employee’s performance in essay form. This can be a trait method and/or a behavioural method, depending on how the manager writes the essay. These statements may include strengths and weaknesses about the employee or statements about past performance. They can also include specific examples of past performance. The disadvantage of this type of method (when not combined with other rating systems) is that the manager’s writing ability can contribute to the effectiveness of the evaluation. Also, managers may write less or more, which means less consistency between performance appraisals by various managers.

Checklist Scale

A checklist method for performance evaluations lessens the subjectivity, although subjectivity will still be present in this type of rating system. With a checklist scale, a series of questions are being asked and the manager simply responds yes or no to the questions, which can fall into either the behavioural or the trait method, or both. Another variation to this scale is a check mark in the criteria the employee meets and a blank in the areas the employee does not meet. The challenge with this format is that it does not allow for more detailed answers and analysis of the performance criteria unless combined with another method, such as essay ratings.

Critical Incident Appraisals

While Critical Incident Appraisals are more time-consuming to develop, they can be effective because they provide specific examples of behaviour to anchor the ratings. With a critical incident appraisal , the manager records examples of the employee’s effective and ineffective behaviour during the time period between evaluations, which is in the behavioural category. When it is time for the employee to be reviewed, the manager will pull out this file and formally record the incidents that occurred over the time period. The disadvantage of this method is the tendency to record only adverse incidents instead of positive ones. However, this method can work well if the manager has the proper training to record incidents (perhaps by keeping a weekly diary) in a fair manner. This approach can also work well when specific jobs vary greatly from week to week, unlike, for example, a factory worker who routinely performs the same weekly tasks.

Work Standards Approach

A work standards approach could be the more effective way of evaluating employees for certain specific jobs in which productivity is essential. With this results-focused approach, a minimum level is set and the employee’s performance evaluation is based on this level. For example, if a salesperson does not meet a quota of $1 million, this would be recorded as nonperforming. The downside is that this method does not allow for reasonable deviations. For example, if the quota is not met, perhaps the employee just had a bad month but normally performs well. This approach works best in long-term situations, in which a reasonable measure of performance can be over a certain period. For example, in an automotive assembly line, the focus is on how many cars are built in a specified period, and therefore, employee performance is measured this way. Since this approach is centred on production, it does not allow for rating of other factors, such as ability to work on a team or communication skills, which can be important parts of the job.

Ranking Methods

In a ranking method system  (also called relative method), employees in a particular department are ranked based on their performance. This system is a comparative method for performance evaluations. This method is stack ranking of employees based upon individual performance appraisal ratings (numeric or classification). A performance distribution chart is developed to show what percentage are rated as poor, marginal, meets, and exceeds with respect to performance. Senior management of larger organizations sometimes conduct this method of ranking to determine if a company wide action is warranted – to cull poor performers and/or increase emphasis on performance improvement plans.

“ 8.6 Performance Appraisal Methods ” from Human Resources Management – 3rd Edition by Debra Patterson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Human Resources Management Copyright © 2023 by Debra Patterson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Essay Evaluation Method in Performance Appraisal

Essay evaluation method in performance appraisal

1. Definition of essay evaluation

• This method asked managers / supervisors to describe strengths and weaknesses of an employee’s behavior. Essay evaluation is a non-quantitative technique • This method usually use with the graphic rating scale method.

2. Input of information sources

• Job knowledge and potential of the employee; • Employee’s understanding of the company’s programs, policies, objectives, etc.; • The employee’s relations with co-workers and superiors; • The employee’s general planning, organizing and controlling ability; • The attitudes and perceptions of the employee, in general.

3. Disadvantages of essay evaluation

• Manager / supervisor may write a biased essay. • A busy rater may write the essay hurriedly without properly assessing the actual performance of the worker. • Apart from that, rater takes a long time, this becomes uneconomical from the view point of the firm, because the time of rater is costly. • Some evaluators may be poor in writing essays on employee performance. Others may be superficial in explanation and use flowery language which may not reflect the actual performance of the employee.

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8 performance appraisal methods you should be aware of

Performance Reviews

Performance appraisals form an essential part of the HR department as they provide important and useful information for the assessment of employee’s performance, skill, knowledge, and overall ability. These appraisals are not only used to eliminate behavior and productivity issues, but also to motivate employees to contribute more. There are many modern performance appraisal methods that organisations can implement depending on their preference: most have their specific advantages as well as limitations. Let us have a look at some of them in more detail.

What are the different performance appraisal methods?

Graphic Rating scale:

A graphic rating scale lists the traits each employee should have and rates workers on a numbered scale for each trait. The scores are meant to separate employees into tiers of performers, which can play a role in determining promotions and salary adjustments.  The method is easy to understand and quite user friendly. It allows behaviors to be quantified making appraisal systems much easier.

What are the methods of performance evaluation in Graphic rating scale?

However, the scale has disadvantages that make it difficult to use as an effective management tool. Even with intense training, some modern performance appraisal methods will be too strict. Some will be too lenient, and others may find it hard to screen out their personal agendas. Although it is good at identifying the best and poorest of employees, it does not help while differentiating between the average employees.

Analyse performance of employees working on Project A from April to June 2017

Essay Performance Appraisal method:

Essay Appraisal is a traditional form of Appraisal also known as “Free Form method.” It involves a description of the employee’s performance by his superior which needs to be based on facts and often includes examples to support the information. Under this method, the rater is asked to express the strengths and weaknesses of the employee’s performance.

What are the techniques of performance appraisal in the Essay Performance Appraisal method?

This technique is normally used with a combination of the graphic rating scale in one of the modern methods variants, because the rater or feedback giver can present the scale in more detail by also giving an explanation for his rating. While preparing the essay on the employee, the rater also needs to consider specific job knowledge, understanding of the company’s policies and objectives, relations with peers, ability to plan and organize, attitude and perception of employees in general.

The Essay performance appraisal methods are non-quantitative and highly subjective. While it provides a good deal of information about the employee, it takes a lot of time of the appraiser which is not always feasible.

Checklist Scale performance appraisal method:

Under this method, a checklist of statements of traits of the employee in the form of Yes or No based questions is prepared. If the person giving the feedback believes strongly that the employee possesses a particular listed trait, he checks the item; otherwise, he leaves the item blank. Here the rater only does the reporting or checking and the HR department does the actual evaluation after observing details over a period of time – and it does not allow detailed analysis of the overall performance.

Critical Incidents method:

In this method, managers prepare lists of statements of very effective and ineffective behavior of an employee. These critical incidents or events represent the outstanding or poor behavior of employees on the job. The manager maintains logs on each employee, whereby he periodically records critical incidents of the workers behavior.

What is a performance appraisal in Critical Incidents method

At the end of the rating period, these recorded critical incidents are used in the evaluation of the workers’ performance. It provides an objective basis for feedback and conducts a thorough discussion of an employee’s performance appraisal process – hence also known as cost accounting method.

Although this method avoids recency bias , there is a tendency for manager and employee both to focus more on the negative incidents than otherwise.

Work Standards performance appraisal method:

In this technique, management establishes the goals openly and sets targets against realistic output standards. These standards are incorporated into the organizational performance appraisal system . Thus each employee has a clear understanding of their duties and knows well what is expected of them. Performance appraisal and interview comments are related to these duties. This makes the appraisal process objective and more accurate. It works best in long-term situations for human resources teams, as it considers performances during that duration and eliminates time consuming processes.

However, it is difficult to compare individual ratings because standards for work may differ from job to job and from employee to employee. It does not allow for reasonable deviations.

Ranking Appraisal:

Here the manager compares an employee to other similar employees, rather than to a standard measurement predefined for employee productivity. The employees are ranked from the highest to the lowest or from the best to the worst. The problem here is that it does not tell how much better or worse one is than another. Also it cannot be used for a large number of employees, or feedback.

Attention to detail

Management by objectives (MBO) methods of performance review are results-oriented. That is, they seek to measure employee performance by examining the extent to which predetermined work objectives have been met. Usually the objectives are established jointly by the supervisor and subordinate. Once an objective is agreed, the employee is usually expected to self-audit; that is, to identify the skills needed to achieve the objective. Typically they do not rely on others to locate and specify their strengths and weaknesses. They are expected to monitor their own development and progress, and drive their future performance. The MBO method of performance review concentrates on actual outcomes.

What makes MBOs efficient is the ability to set SMART Goals i.e. set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time-bound.

The problem of judgmental performance evaluation inherent in the traditional methods of employee performance appraisal process led to some organisations to go for objective evaluation by developing a technique known as “Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)” around the 1960s. This performance appraisal method is considered better than the traditional ones because it provides advantages like a more accurate gauge, clearer standards, 360 degree feedback, and consistency in evaluation.

The BARS method is designed to bring the benefits of both qualitative and quantitative data to the employee appraisal process. It compares an individual employee’s performance against specific examples of behaviour that are anchored to numerical ratings.

Although even this method has its limitations as it is often accused of being subject to unreliability and leniency error.

Performance appraisal process is already being considered a necessary evil . Thus companies need to be careful while selecting out of these appraisal methods and accept feedback on improving the process. The method should be able to provide value to the company starting from the review period as well as the employees and managers.

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What you need to know about performance appraisal methods

Wondering what performance appraisal methods are best for your business?

With the increasing shift to remote work and businesses re-inventing themselves to suit modern needs, it’s critical to redefine your performance management strategy.

These new strategies should encourage employees to make the most of the opportunity to work from home and develop processes that help your business grow.

In this article, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about performance appraisal methods. We’ll also discuss why employee performance appraisal is so important for companies.

This Article Contains:

(click on specific links to jump to a particular section of the page)

What is Performance Appraisal?

• Self-Evaluation Method
• Essay Appraisal Method
• The Critical Incident Method
• How to Build an Efficient System of Employee Performance Appraisal 

What is the Purpose of Performance Appraisal?

Let’s dive in.

Performance appraisals are a regular process where employers evaluate an employee’s performance against a predetermined, measurable set of objectives.

Usually conducted quarterly or annually, the primary goal of performance evaluation is to determine how well an employee meets the company’s expectations.

Now there are primarily two ways to conduct the performance appraisal process — using the traditional method or the modern method. 

The traditional method emphasizes evaluating an employee for their personality traits , such as: 

• Dependability
• Integrity 
• Leadership potential, etc.

On the other hand, the modern performance appraisal method emphasizes the evaluation of work results (or job achievements) over the employee’s traits.

Top 3 Performance Appraisal Methods for Remote Teams

Let’s look at the top three performance appraisal methods that companies can use for the performance appraisals of remote members:

1. Self-Evaluation Method

This appraisal process allows employees to scrutinize their own performance and give themselves feedback. 

The self-appraisal method is especially useful for remote teams as you’ll be able to:

• Gain insights into the employee’s work, performance, and the way they operate.
• Know the employee’s key strengths and weaknesses. 
• Determine if your employees take their responsibilities and duties seriously.

Once a remote employee has reviewed themselves, employers can use the ranking method to rate the individual based on their strengths and weaknesses.

How do you go about this method?

You give employees a comprehensive questionnaire along with some open-ended questions about their performance.

Here are a few sample questions:

• What goals would you like to accomplish in the next few months?
• What achievements are you most proud of since the last evaluation?
• What targets were you unable to achieve this past year?
• What would you have done differently to achieve the missed targets?

2. Essay Appraisal Method

The essay appraisal method involves the remote employee’s evaluation by their superiors and other team members. 

In this method, you ask the appraiser to:

• Give a detailed description of the employee’s performance and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the employee’s behavior.
• Provide suitable examples to support the information given in the performance review.
• Use a rating scale (1-10) to evaluate the employee’s attributes such as work ethics, leadership, communication, interpersonal skills, etc.

Why do you need this?

With the essay appraisal method, you get a comprehensive view of how remote employees participate as team members in their work group. 

You can also determine if the employees’ behavior might cause issues at the workplace.

For instance, you can identify and prevent negative incidents like a remote employee spreading rumors among coworkers. 

3. The Critical Incident Method

The critical incident method helps you determine how remote team members handled themselves during certain stressful situations. This way, you can learn more about their behavior at the workplace. 

Here are the steps involved in this method of performance appraisal:

• Note down how an employee reacted to a specific situation (such as missed deadlines, etc.)
• Identify if the remote employee’s behavior was ‘good’ or ‘bad.’
• Assign a score to their performance during those incidents.

The critical incident method helps you and your HR department determine the skills, attitudes, values, and knowledge a remote employee needs to perform well during a crisis.

You can also identify which employees have the potential to be remote team managers based on their conduct.

Other Remote Employee Appraisal Methods

Some other performance appraisal methods that you can use to evaluate your remote team include:

• Human resource cost accounting method: Analyzes the employee’s performance through the monetary benefits they yield to the company. 
• Management By Objectives (MBO): Appraises managers and employees’ progress on some pre-set goals. 
• Psychological appraisal: Determines employees’ hidden potential with a psychological test and predicts their future performance.
• 360-degree feedback: Evaluates an employee using feedback collected from the employee’s circle of influence — peers, managers, and customers.
• Forced distribution method: Compare remote members against one another over any given performance standard.
• Forced choice method: The reviewer is given a few statements that apply to an employee, and they must decide if the information is true or false. 
• Field review method: A HR or administrator observes an employee for a few days and evaluates performance. 
• Journaling : An employee writes down all their achievements throughout a year and presents them to the evaluator.

How to Build an Efficient Remote Employee Performance Appraisal System

Since working from home is the new normal, it’s essential to consider how you want to conduct performance evaluations in the future. 

With the right performance appraisal method, you can make the whole experience effective and rewarding.

Here’s how you can build an efficient employee performance appraisal system:

1. Reflect on the Purpose of Appraisal

You need to know what you want to achieve with your performance management system.  

For most organizations, the company’s pre-pandemic goals are not applicable anymore.  

The company goalposts have shifted , and the context has changed. 

In a remote environment, you can’t measure employee performance just from the volume of work they do every day.

Instead, you should look at the employees’ resilience, empathy, and adaptability in these tough times. Ideally, you should acknowledge and reward your employees for maintaining proper communication and teamwork.

2. Communicate Proactively

There are several challenges unique to telecommuting , such as,

• Reduced access to managerial support and internal communication.
• No visual cues to understand team response.
• Asynchronous communication due to different time zones, etc.

So it’s critical to have a robust telecommunication policy to overcome these challenges and ensure effective communication.

You must also use video communication tools for a performance appraisal meeting in the remote work environment.

Visual clues like facial expressions allow employees to understand the subtext of the discussion.

Here are some tips you can use to make video appraisals more effective:

• Be as explicit and verbal as possible in the discussion.
• Listen well and encourage back and forth communication. 
• Spend time to ensure that things don’t get lost in translation.
• If you need to deliver negative feedback to an employee, reassure them that you’re criticizing their performance and not their self-worth.

3. Practice Empathy

There’s no fixed template when it comes to evaluating job performance — everyone is trying to do their best in these unique circumstances.  

Ensure that you make an empathetic assessment that’s flexible and recognize the hardships that your employees may be enduring.

An empathic leadership style can bring your employees closer, increase productivity, morale, and loyalty.

So how can you have a more empathetic appraisal ?

Acknowledge the fact that it’s difficult to cut out emotions and be 100% professional all the time.

Have a narrative assessment that provides an individual employee with specific information. Point out the areas they need to improve and what they’re doing well.

However, remember that even talented employees can go through a rough patch that might impact their actual performance. 

In such cases, you must:

• Ensure a positive and supportive work environment for all team members.
• Avoid too much work pressure.
• Respect the contributions of every employee and help them improve their work.

4. Eliminate Any Biases

While managers may strive to be as objective as possible in performance assessments, sometimes implicit biases inevitably creep in.   

You must become aware of biases, such as:

• Presenting employees with a good past performance record more favorably.
• Viewing average performers in a more critical light.
• Making assumptions about an employee’s attitude based on their performance.

When you recognize these biases, you can take steps to correct them. 

It’ll ensure that you avoid a situation that discourages average employees from improving their performance. On the other extreme, you’ll also avoid encouraging efficient employees into overworking themselves.

Some steps that you can take to counteract your biases can include:

• Gathering feedback from different sources.
• Measuring performance against objective performance metrics .
• Using employee self-evaluations against your perception of their work to eliminate subjectivity, etc.

5. Use Productivity Tools

In a remote work environment, you need to provide specific feedback to your employees. 

But that’s not all.

You need to conduct frequent, smaller evaluations such as monthly or quarterly check-ins.

So how can you do that?

By using performance management tools to keep a tab on the work performance of your remote team in real-time.

These tools can track and collect workday data and enable your employees and management with the information needed to make strategic improvements. 

Time Doctor is one such tool that can help you manage your employee performance and take steps to improve overall productivity and profitability.

Used by large corporations as well as small and medium businesses, TimeDoctor is a performance management software that can give you insights into your team’s effectiveness.

You can use workday data from Time Doctor to:

• See the total amount of time employees spend on projects and tasks.
• View idle and inactive time with the idle time tracker.
• Get productivity reports broken down by day, week, or months.
• Keep a tab on your employee’s most-used websites and applications.
• See if your employees are actually working with screenshots and screencasts.
• Know how they spend time on daily tasks with the daily timeline overview and more .

Let’s look at why employee performance appraisal is important:

1. Maximizes Employee Potential

Constant feedback on an employee’s performance will help you track their productivity.

You can then take steps to:

• Ensure tasks are assigned based on the employee’s skill and competency.
• Give more training to less efficient employees.
• Encourage employees to maximize their potential.
• Motivate an employee to work towards their career growth.
• Address any behavioral issues that may be affecting team productivity.

2. Boosts Team Management

Effective performance appraisal gives an employee a structured review process. 

This allows employees to approach the management for:

• Discussions related to performance, promotions, etc.
• Long term and short term goal setting and achieving targets.
• Clarifying expectations and growth plans for the future. 
• Identifying and resolving bottlenecks in the project execution. 

With an effective appraisal technique, you also eliminate micromanagement .

Why is this important?

When employees feel that every aspect of their work is under the scrutiny of an evaluator, it may negatively impact their morale. 

Eliminating micromanagement will enhance the trust between managers and the employees and do away with the time-consuming task of always monitoring employees. 

3. Improves Your Business’ Bottom Line

Performance appraisal system helps the management team :

• Decide the promotions, transfers, and rewards for every employee.
• Enhance decision making in situations that require layoffs or filling job roles internally.
• Optimize efficiency and employee engagement at the workplace.
• Ensure that your staff is not getting paid for hours where they were idle or inactive.

When you take such steps to maximize your team productivity, you’ll increase business output, and ultimately your profits.

Wrapping Up

Remote working may have compelled most companies to revisit how they evaluate employees. 

However, it also presents an opportunity to shift towards a more people-focused appraisal system.

Employee performance appraisal isn’t just about dealing with poor performance. It involves setting the right employee expectations and training employees to be more productive.

An employee-centric performance appraisal system allows us to work towards that goal. 

Go through the tips we have suggested in the article, and revisit your idea of what an employee performance appraisal should look like.

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Two Way Method for Performance Appraisal

Performance appraisals are one component of a performance management system for employers to ensure employees are meeting the company's expectations. They are measuring tools that supervisors and managers utilize during an evaluation period, usually on an annual basis, to determine if employees are completing their assigned job duties and responsibilities in a satisfactory manner. The type of performance appraisal used reflects the employee's position, level, job functions and the kinds of measurements the company needs to determine workplace efficiency.

Types of Performance Appraisals

Graphic rating scales, management by objectives and narrative-essay are among the most common types of performance appraisals suitable for two-way exchange during a performance appraisal. Although graphic rating scales are typically a unilateral method of evaluating performance, they can be modified to create a two-way method of appraisal. Management by objectives and narrative-essay methods generally require some employee input anyway; they also can be modified to produce a formal two-way method of performance appraisal.

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Graphic rating scales are useful in production-oriented work environments where supervisors are responsible for evaluating the performance of large numbers of department employees. They generally consist of numerical ratings for specific job functions, and an average of the total score indicates the employee's overall performance. Converting a graphic rating scale appraisal to a two-way method would involve providing the employee with an appraisal form to conduct a self-evaluation. During the performance appraisal meeting, the supervisor and employee would then compare their respective scores and discuss areas where the employee's and the supervisor's ratings vary.

Management by Objectives

This method of performance appraisal almost always requires employee input because employees and supervisors work together to identify the goals, resources and deadlines that factor into management by objectives (MBOs) appraisals. MBOs align specific employee objectives with company objectives. The employee and her supervisor then discuss the resources and time necessary to complete those goals. For example, if the company's goal is to increase sales by 15 percent during the one-year period, the employee's goal reflects her part in helping the company reach its goal.

Using this scenario, the percentage by which individual employees must increase their sales depends on the number of department sales personnel. During MBOs appraisal meetings, employees list the resources they need to accomplish their goals and they check in with supervisors at regular intervals to report on their progress. This type of performance appraisal is ideal for two-way communication and interaction between an employee and her supervisor.

Narrative-Essay Performance Appraisals

The most time-intensive method of performance appraisal is the narrative-essay. It takes a significant amount of preparation, document review and drafting time to produce a well-written assessment of employee performance. The most effective way to convert a narrative-essay performance appraisal to a two-way method of evaluation is to have the employee complete a self-assessment in an identical format as the supervisor's narrative-essay. Although this is a time-consuming method of employee appraisal, it is likely the best format for encouraging two-way dialogue during a performance appraisal meeting. The time and thought that go into a narrative-essay provide talking points for every area of the employee's performance.

Considerations

The benefits of a two-way method for performance appraisal are numerous; however, one single benefit can change the perception of performance appraisals in general. Many employees dread being evaluated because they feel their contributions are undervalued and that their own feedback won't factor into the overall assessment of their job performance.

University of California, Berkley professor Gregorio Billikopf's recommend negotiated approach is a two-way method for performance appraisal that makes employee feedback just as important as the supervisor's feedback. In his article, "Performance Appraisal (Negotiated Approach)," he states: "Strengths of the negotiated performance appraisal are its ability to promote candid two-way communication between the supervisor and the person being appraised and to help the latter take more responsibility for improving performance. In contrast, in the traditional performance appraisal, the supervisor acts more as a judge of employee performance than as a coach."

• University of California, Berkeley; Performance Appraisal; Gregorio Billikopf; 2001
• Pew Center on the States: Employee Performance
• Ohio State University; Conversations of Performance Management; 2011
• Society for Human Resource Management
• National Human Resources Association

Ruth Mayhew has been writing since the mid-1980s, and she has been an HR subject matter expert since 1995. Her work appears in "The Multi-Generational Workforce in the Health Care Industry," and she has been cited in numerous publications, including journals and textbooks that focus on human resources management practices. She holds a Master of Arts in sociology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Ruth resides in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

7 performance appraisal methods every manager should know

Performance appraisal methods form the backbone of effective talent management. From the classic 360-degree feedback to the modern continuous feedback model, we explore an array of performance appraisal methods in this blog. With a range of time-tested traditional approaches and modern strategies utilizing real-time data, these appraisal methods provide various ways to gauge, inspire, and optimize employee performance. How do you motivate and measure your team's success? What approach aligns with your vision for growth? The answers lie within these methodologies, guiding your journey to cultivating talent and propelling your organization forward.

What is performance appraisal?

Performance appraisal is a formal evaluation process used by organizations to assess an employee's job performance. It involves a structured review of an individual's work, skills, and accomplishments, often conducted annually or periodically. The goal is to provide constructive feedback, set performance expectations, and identify areas for improvement.

Importance of performance appraisal methods

• Feedback: Provides employees feedback on strengths and areas needing improvement.
• Recognition: Recognizes and celebrates employees' achievements and dedication.
• Goal Setting: Helps set clear goals and expectations for the future. 
• Development: Identifies training and development needs
• Motivation: Recognizing effort and room for growth motivates effectively.
• Decision-making: Appraisal outcomes guide crucial decisions like promotions, pay changes, or terminations.

7 types of performance appraisal methods

1. 360-degree feedback.

360-degree feedback is a way to evaluate an employee's performance by soliciting input from various individuals who form their "circle of influence." This circle typically includes supervisors, colleagues, customers, and direct reports. The process involves the following steps: ‍

• Selecting raters, including supervisors, peers, subordinates, and even self-assessment.
• Collecting feedback; raters provide input on the employee's performance.
• Evaluating the collected feedback for insights.
• Sharing the feedback with the employee.
• Collaborating on a development plan.

Benefits of 360-degree feedback:

• Collects insights from multiple perspectives.
• Encourages employee self-reflection.
• Identifies specific areas for improvement.
• Fosters open dialogues.

Challenges with 360-degree feedback:

• Complexity: Requires careful planning and management.
• Time-intensive: Gathering and analyzing feedback can be time-consuming.
• Bias possibility: Raters may exhibit biases.
• Privacy concerns: Confidentiality can be a concern when handling feedback.

2. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)

Behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) method is a performance appraisal technique that combines narrative descriptions with numerical ratings. It involves:

• Identifying key job behaviors
• Gathering input from employees, managers or experts
• Creating specific descriptions for different performance levels.
• Evaluating employees based on these descriptions.
• Assigning numerical ratings.

Benefits of using BARS:

• Embrace clarity in standards for better feedback.
• Boost precision in performance analysis .
• Cut out unrelated variations in ratings.
• Prioritize specific, observable behaviors.
• Safeguard against bias for a fair appraisal process.

Challenges of using BARS:

• Developing BARS can be labor-intensive.
• Requires training and expertise.
• May not suit all job roles or organizations.

3. Psychological appraisals

Psychological Appraisal Method, also known as Psychological Appraisals, involves assessing employees' mental and emotional attributes, including personality, motivation, and interpersonal skills. The process typically comprises:

• Administering psychological tests and assessments.
• Evaluating responses to gauge traits, preferences, and mental well-being.
• Comparing results against job requirements and performance expectations.

Benefits of using psychological appraisals:

• Offers a deeper understanding of employee traits.
• Helps in team composition and conflict resolution.
• Tailors training and development plans.
• Addresses well-being and stress factors.

Challenges with psychological appraisals:

• Privacy Concerns: Raises employee privacy issues.
• Complex Analysis: Requires skilled professionals to interpret results.
• Subjectivity: Interpreting psychological data can be subjective.
• Costly and Time-Consuming: Testing and analysis can be expensive and time-intensive.

4. Management by objectives (MBO)

Management by Objectives (MBO) is a performance appraisal method where employees and managers collaboratively set specific, measurable goals. The process includes:

• Establishing clear objectives and key results (OKRs).
• Regular progress reviews between managers and employees.
• Assessing achievements against predetermined targets.

Benefits of management by objectives method:

• Ensures everyone works toward common goals.
• Defines clear expectations and priorities.
• Boosts employee engagement and accountability.
• Focuses on continuous development.

Challenges with management by objectives:

• Complex goal setting: May lead to unrealistic or unclear objectives.
• Time-consuming: Frequent reviews can be labor-intensive.
• Not suitable for all roles: Some jobs may not fit the MBO model.
• Overemphasis on results: Can neglect behavioral aspects of performance.

5. Assessment center method

The Assessment centre method is a performance appraisal approach that assesses employees' competencies through various activities and simulations. The process involves:

• Conducting a range of exercises like group discussions, role plays, and presentations.
• Evaluating participants' performance against predetermined competencies.
• Providing detailed feedback and development recommendations.

Benefits of using assessment center method:

• Resource-intensive: Requires significant time and effort.
• Costly: Can be expensive to organize.
• Anxiety inducing: Participants may feel stressed.
• Complex logistics: Coordination challenges for large groups.

Challenges with assessment center method:

6. cost accounting method.

The 720-Degree Performance Appraisal method is an advanced approach that gathers feedback from various sources, including peers, subordinates, and external stakeholders, providing a well-rounded evaluation. The process involves:

• Identify performance cost components: training, salary, benefits, and resources.
• Allocate these costs to individual employees or specific performance activities.
• Evaluate employee performance against predefined performance criteria and objectives.
• Compute total performance costs, encompassing direct and indirect expenses per employee.
• Examine the correlation between costs and individual employee performance.
• Determine if costs align with outcomes and identify cost-saving or performance improvement opportunities.
• Leverage cost accounting insights for HR decisions on compensation, training, and more.

Benefits of cost-accounting method:

• Links performance to cost-saving or revenue.
• Provides quantifiable, concrete metrics.
• Ensures alignment with financial goals.
• Encourages cost-effective work practices.

Challenges with cost accounting method includes:

• Narrow focus: Ignores non-financial aspects of performance.
• Complex data: Requires expertise in cost analysis.
• Potential for pressure: May lead to cost-cutting at the expense of quality.
• Inadequate for creative roles: Less applicable to roles with intangible outcomes.

7. 720-degree method

The 720-Degree Performance Appraisal method is an advanced approach that gathers feedback from various sources, including peers, subordinates, and external stakeholders, providing a well-rounded evaluation. 

It goes beyond the traditional 360-degree method by involving a wider range of feedback sources. The process involves:

• Self-assessment
• Evaluation by peers, subordinates, and supervisors
• Feedback from external stakeholders
• Performance data collection
• Analysis and report generation

Benefits of 720- degree method:

• Offers a holistic assessment.
• Combines internal and external insights.
• Identifies areas for growth.
• Minimizes bias with diverse perspectives.

Challenges with 720-degree feedback:

• Resource-intensive: Requires time and effort.
• Complex coordination: Gathering input from multiple sources can be challenging.
• Potential for conflicts: Conflicting feedback may arise.
• Privacy concerns: Raises confidentiality issues.

What are the challenges in implementing performance appraisal methods?

Biases in appraisers can result in inaccurate assessments and unfair employee treatment. Few of them are are listed below:

• Halo/horns effect: The halo/horns effect happens when a manager's evaluation of an employee is heavily influenced by a single positive or negative trait. This can lead to unfair and inaccurate reviews.
• Recency error: Recency error occurs when individuals give greater weight to recent events or experiences when making judgments or decisions. Managers often emphasize recent performance over the overall record, known as the "What have you done for me lately?" bias, due to the human tendency to remember recent events more easily. ‍
• Leniency bias: Leniency error is a bias that results from emotional consideration, potentially leading to inflated ratings. For instance, if a worker faces personal issues, a manager might offer a more positive review, even if improvement is necessary.  ‍
• Primary bias: Primacy bias is when your initial impression of an employee influences your overall evaluation. The appraisal decision hinges on early performance, whether it's been positive or negative. ‍
• Central tendency bias: Central tendency bias is when people rate everyone as average, even if they're not. This often happens when you struggle to choose and opt for the safer choice. ‍
• Affinity bias: Affinity bias creeps in when we gravitate towards people who resemble us in terms of gender, age, race, viewpoints, education, or experiences. ‍
• Rater bias: Managers tend to rate others higher in areas they struggle with and lower in areas where they excel. This stems from their own biases.

2. Subjectivity

Numerous appraisal techniques hinge on subjective judgment, susceptible to personal opinions and emotions.

3. Inadequate training

Inadequate training for appraisers can result in inconsistent and unreliable evaluation outcomes.

4. Fear of confrontation

Certain evaluators might sidestep addressing performance concerns due to a fear of confrontation, resulting in ineffective feedback.

1. How can biases be minimized in performance evaluations?

To minimize biases in performance evaluations, consider these six strategies:

Biases in performance evaluations can be minimized by using standardized criteria, incorporating multiple evaluators, and leveraging performance management software to ensure objective, data-driven assessments.

2. What is the best performance appraisal method?

The most effective performance appraisal method depends on the organization's unique requirements and objectives. Options include 360-degree feedback, self-assessment, management by objectives (MBO), and narrative evaluations. The choice should be in harmony with the company's culture and goals, and often a blend of methods offers a more comprehensive assessment of employee performance.

3. What are the steps in performance appraisal?

The steps in performance appraisal are setting performance standards, communicating expectations, measuring actual performance, comparing performance with standards, discussing results with the employee, and implementing improvement plans.

5. What is the purpose of performance appraisals?

Performance appraisals serve as assessments of an employee's work performance during a specific timeframe. They aim to identify strengths and areas for improvement, with the goal of enhancing future performance.

6. How do I write a strong self-appraisal?

In my self-appraisal, I emphasized my key achievements with specific examples, quantified the results to demonstrate my impact, and acknowledged challenges I overcame while highlighting my growth and future goals. I balanced strengths with areas for improvement, referenced positive feedback, and maintained a professional and positive tone throughout.

7. What are different aspects of 360-degree feedback?

• Self-assessment: 
• Peer assessment
• Managerial assessment
• Client assessment

In a nutshell, knowing your way around various performance appraisal methods isn't just a corporate handbook thing; it's a vital element for achieving success in organizations. Understanding feedback methods leads to a happier, aligned workforce in organizations. This, in turn, leads to motivated employees, goals that harmonize with the company's rhythm. Ultimately, an informed approach to performance appraisal methods can tip the scales in favor of achieving organizational excellence and securing a brighter future.

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20 Performance Appraisal: Methods

Garima Jain

1. Learning Outcome

After completing this module the students will be able to:

• Understand the methods of performance appraisal.
• Having the knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of various performance appraisal methods.
• Reasons of failures of performance appraisal techniques.

2. Introduction

While designing an appraisal program, numerous performance appraisal methods are used. Various methods have been devised to measure the quantity and quality of employee’s job performance. Each of the methods could be effective for some purposes for some organizations. The methods have to be accepted according to the needs of the organisation.

3. Methods of Performance appraisal

Numerous methods have been designed to appraise the performance of an employee. Strauss and Sayles have classified appraisal methods which are widely used into two categories, viz., traditional methods and modern methods. While traditional methods lay emphasis on the rating of the individual’s personality traits, such as initiative, dependability, drive, creativity, integrity, intelligence, leadership potential, etc.; the modern methods, on the other hand, place more emphasis on the evaluation of work results i.e. job achievements than the personal traits. Modern methods tend to be more objective and worthwhile.

3.1. Traditional Methods

3.1.1. Ranking Method

It is the oldest and simplest formal systematic method of performance appraisal in which employee is compared with all others for the purpose of placing order of worth. The employees are ranked from the highest to the lowest or from the best to the worst.

In doing this the employee who is the highest on the characteristic being measured and also the one who is lowest, are indicated. Then, the next highest and the next lowest between next highest and lowest until all the employees to be rated have been ranked. Thus, if there are ten employees to be appraised, there will be ten ranks from 1 to 10.

However, the greatest limitations of this appraisal method are that:

• It does not tell that how much better or worse one is than another.
• The task of ranking individuals is difficult when a large number of employees are rated.
• It is very difficult to compare one individual with others having varying behavioral traits.

To remedy these defects, the paired comparison method of performance appraisal has been evolved.

3.1.2. Paired Comparison Method

In this method, each employee is compared with every other employee, one at a time. The number of times the employee is compared as better with others determines his or her final ranking.

The number of possible pairs for a given number of employees is ascertained by the following formula: N (N-1)/2 Where N = the total number of employees to be evaluated.

Example: If the five teachers (naming K, M, R, V, B) have to be evaluated by the Vice Chancellor of a University, then above formulae gives 5 (5-1)/2 = 10 pairs which are:

Thus, the pairs so ascertained give the maximum possible permutations and combinations. The number of times a worker is considered better makes his/her score. Such scores are determined for each worker and he/she is ranked according to his/her score. One obvious disadvantage of this method is that the method can become unmanageable when large numbers of employees are being compared.

3.1.3. Grading Method

In this method, certain categories of worth are established in advance and carefully defined. There can be three categories established for employees: outstanding, satisfactory and unsatisfactory. There can be more than three grades. Employee performance is compared with grade definitions. The employee is, then, allocated to the grade that best describes his or her performance.

Such type of grading is done in Semester pattern of examinations and in the selection of a candidate in the public service sector. One of the major drawbacks of this method is that the rater may rate most of the employees on the higher side of their performance.

3.1.4. Forced Distribution Method

This method was evolved to eliminate the central tendency of rating most of the employees at a higher end or the lower end of the scale. Employees are placed between two extremes of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ job performances. The method assumes that employees’ performance level confirms to a normal statistical distribution – 10, 20, 40, 20 and 10%.

10% are placed at the top level and are given outstanding merit, 20% are given good rating, 40% satisfactory (average), 20% fair and 10% unsatisfactory. This is useful for rating a large number of employees. This method tends to eliminate or reduce bias. It is also highly simple to understand and easy to apply in appraising the performance of employees in organisations.

The major weakness of this method lies in the assumption that employee performance levels always confirm to a normal distribution.

3.1.5. Forced Choice Method

In this method the rater is given a series of statements about an employee. These statements are arranged in blocks of two or more, and the rater indicates which statement is most or least descriptive of the employee.

A pair of positive statements may be:

• Gives good and clear instructions to the subordinates.
• Can be depended upon to complete any job assigned.
• A pair of negative statements may be:
• Makes promises beyond his limit to keep these.
• Inclines to favour some employees.

Each statement carries a score or weight, which is not made known to the rater. The human resource section does rating for all sets of statements— both positive and negative. The final rating is done on the basis of all sets of statements. Thus, employee rating in this manner makes the method more objective. In this method, the rater is forced to select statements which are readymade.

3.1.6. Check-List Method

The basic purpose of utilizing check-list method is to ease the evaluation burden upon the rater. In this method, a series of statements, i.e., questions with their answers in ‘yes’ or ‘no’ are prepared by the HR department. The check-list is, then, presented to the rater to tick appropriate answers relevant to the ratee. These questions are concerned with the employee behavior. Each question carries a weight-age in relation to their importance.

When the check-list is completed, it is sent to the HR department to prepare the final scores for all ratees based on all questions. However, one of the disadvantages of the check-list method is that it is difficult to assemble, analyse and weigh a number of statements about employee characteristics and contributions. From a cost point of view, this method may be inefficient, particularly if there are a number of job categories in the organisation because a separate check-list of questions must be prepared for each category of job. It will involve a lot of money, time and efforts.

Source: https://www.businesstopia.net/sites/default/files/styles/articles/public/checklist-method.png?itok=XMLILfpC

3.1.7. Critical Incidents Method

This method has gained a lot of interest these days. In this method, the rater focuses his or her attention on those key or critical behaviors that make the difference between performing a job in a noteworthy manner (effectively or ineffectively). There are three steps involved in appraising employees using this method.

First, a list of noteworthy (good or bad) on-the-job behavior of specific incidents is prepared. Second, a group of experts then assigns weightage or score to these incidents, depending upon their degree of desirability to perform a job. Third, finally a check-list indicating incidents that describe workers as “good” or “bad” is constructed. Then, the check-list is given to the rater for evaluating the workers.

The basic idea behind this rating is to appraise the workers who can perform their jobs effectively in critical situations. This is so because most people work alike in normal situation. The strength of critical incident method is that it focuses on behaviors and, thus, judge’s performance rather than personalities.

Its drawbacks are that one has to regularly write down the critical incidents which become time-consuming and burdensome for evaluators, i.e., managers. Generally, negative incidents are more noticed than positive ones. It is rater’s inference that determines which incidents are critical to job performance. Hence, the method is subject to all the limitations relating to subjective judgments.

Source: https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAV1AAAAJDI5Y2M1YzgwLWIyOWYtNGI2OC04YTg2LWI0OTVkNTc4Mm EyZA.jpg

3.1.8. Graphic Rating Scale Method

The graphic rating scale is one of the most popular and simplest techniques for appraising performance. It is also known as linear rating scale. In this method, the printed appraisal form is used to appraise each employee.

The form lists traits (such as quality and reliability) and a range of job performance characteristics (from unsatisfactory to outstanding) for each trait. The rating is done on the basis of points on the continuum. The common practice is to follow five points scale.

The rater rates each appraisee by checking the score that best describes his or her performance for each trait and all assigned values for the traits are then totaled.

This method is good for measuring various job behaviors of an employee. However, it is also subjected to rater’s bias while rating employee’s behavior at job. Occurrence of ambiguity in designing the graphic scale results in bias in appraising employee’s performance.

3.1.9. Essay Method

Essay method is the simplest one among various appraisal methods available. In this method, the rater writes a narrative description on an employee’s strengths, weaknesses, past performance, potential and suggestions for improvement. Its positive point is that it is simple in use. It does not require complex formats and extensive/specific training to complete it.

However, essay method, like other methods, is not free from drawbacks. In the absence of any prescribed structure, the essays are likely to vary widely in terms of length and content. And, of course, the quality of appraisal depends more upon rater’s writing skill than the employee’s actual level of performance.

Moreover, because the essays are descriptive, the method provides only qualitative information about the employee. In the absence of quantitative data, the evaluation suffers from subjectivity problem. Nonetheless, the essay method is a good start and is beneficial also if used in association with other appraisal methods.

3.1.10. Field Review Method

This is an appraisal by someone outside the rater’s own department usually someone from the corporate office or the HR department. The outsider reviews employee’s records and holds interviews with the appraisee and his or her superior. This method is useful when comparable information is needed from employees in different units or locations.

3.1.11. Confidential Report

It is the traditional way of appraising employees mainly in the Government Departments. Evaluation is made by the immediate boss or supervisor for giving effect to promotion and transfer. Usually a structured format is devised to collect information on employee’s strength, weakness, intelligence, attitude, character, attendance, discipline etc. Overall grading can be given on a five point scale (outstanding, very good, good, average, and poor). The confidential reports, as the name suggests, are very confidential.

3.2. Modern Methods

3.2.1. Assessment centres

An assessment centre typically involves the use of methods like social/informal events, tests and exercises, assignments being given to a group of employees to assess their competencies to take higher responsibilities in the future. Generally, employees are given an assignment similar to the job they would be expected to perform if promoted. The trained evaluators observe and evaluate employees as they perform the assigned jobs and are evaluated on job related characteristics.

The major competencies that are judged in assessment centres are interpersonal skills, intellectual capability, planning and organizing capabilities, motivation, career orientation etc. Assessment centres are also an effective way to determine the training and development needs of the targeted employees.

Source: https://image.slidesharecdn.com/assessmentcentres-140814055654-phpapp02/95/assessment-development-centres-21-638.jpg?cb=1408016717

3.2.2. Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS)

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) is a relatively new technique which combines the graphic rating scale and critical incidents method. It consists of predetermined critical areas of job performance or sets of behavioral statements describing important job performance qualities as good or bad (for example: the qualities like inter-personal relationships, adaptability and reliability, job knowledge etc). These statements are developed from critical incidents.

In this method, an employee’s actual job behavior is judged against the desired behavior by recording and comparing the behavior with BARS. Developing and practicing BARS requires expert knowledge.

Source: https://image.slidesharecdn.com/top12performanceappraisalmethods-150507155914-lva1-app6891/95/top-12-performance-appraisal-methods-9-638.jpg?cb=1431014406

3.2.3. Human resource accounting method

Human resources are valuable assets for every organization. Human resource accounting method tries to find the relative worth of these assets in the terms of money. In this method the performance appraisal of the employees is judged in terms of cost and contribution of the employees. The cost of employees include all the expenses incurred on them like their compensation, recruitment and selection costs, induction and training costs etc. whereas their contribution includes the total value added (in monetary terms). The difference between the cost and the contribution will be the performance of the employees. Ideally, the contribution of the employees should be greater than the cost incurred on them.

Source: https://image.slidesharecdn.com/humanresourceaccountingppt-131214003949-phpapp01/95/human-resource-accounting-ppt-4-638.jpg?cb=1386981648

3.2.4. 360 degree performance appraisal

360 degree feedback, also known as “multi-rater feedback”, is the most comprehensive appraisal where the feedback about the employees’ performance comes from all the sources that come in contact with the employee on his job.

360 degree respondents for an employee can be his/her peers, managers (i.e. superior), subordinates, team members, customers, suppliers/ vendors – anyone who comes into contact with the employee and can provide valuable insights and information or feedback regarding the “on-the-job” performance of the employee.

360 degree appraisal has four integral components:

• Self appraisal
• Superior’s appraisal
• Subordinate’s appraisal
• Peer appraisal

Self appraisal gives a chance to the employee to look at his/her strengths and weaknesses, his achievements, and judge his own performance. Superior’s appraisal forms the traditional part of the 360 degree appraisal where the employees’ responsibilities and actual performance is rated by the superior.

Subordinates appraisal gives a chance to judge the employee on the parameters like communication and motivating abilities, superior’s ability to delegate the work, leadership qualities etc. Also known as internal customers, the correct feedback given by peers can help to find employees’ abilities to work in a team, co-operation and sensitivity towards others.

Self assessment is an indispensable part of 360 degree appraisals and therefore 360 degree performance appraisal has high employee involvement and also has the strongest impact on behavior and performance. It provides a “360-degree review” of the employees’ performance and is considered to be one of the most credible performance appraisal methods.

360 degree appraisal is also a powerful developmental tool because when conducted at regular intervals (say yearly) it helps to keep a track of the changes of others’ perceptions about the employees. A 360 degree appraisal is generally found more suitable for the managers as it helps to assess their leadership and managing styles. This technique is being effectively used across the globe for performance appraisals. Some of the organizations following it are Wipro, Infosys, and Reliance Industries etc.

3.2.5. Management by objectives (MBO)

The concept of ‘Management by Objectives’ (MBO) was first given by Peter Drucker in 1954. It can be defined as a process whereby the employees and the superiors come together to identify common goals, the employees set their goals to be achieved, the standards to be taken as the criteria for measurement of their performance and contribution and deciding the course of action to be followed.

The essence of MBO is participative goal setting, choosing course of actions and decision making. An important part of the MBO is the measurement and the comparison of the employee’s actual performance with the standards set. Ideally, when employees themselves have been involved with the goal setting and the choosing the course of action to be followed by them, they are more likely to fulfill their responsibilities.

MBO process

The principle behind Management by Objectives (MBO) is to create empowered employees who have clarity of the roles and responsibilities expected from them, understand their objectives to be achieved and thus help in the achievement of organizational as well as personal goals.

Source: https://image.slidesharecdn.com/finalmanagementbyobjectives-111110014331-phpapp02/95/management-by-objectives-18-728.jpg?cb=1320889723

Some of the important features and advantages of MBO are:

• Clarity of goals – With MBO, came the concept of SMART goals i.e. goals that are:

* Measurable

*Achievable

*Realistic, and

*Time bound.

• The goals thus set are clear, motivating and there is a linkage between organizational goals and performance targets of the employees.
• The focus is on future rather than on past. Goals and standards are set for the performance for the future with periodic reviews and feedback.
• Involving employees in the whole process of goal setting and increasing employee empowerment enhances employee job satisfaction and commitment.
• Frequent reviews and interactions between superiors and subordinates helps to maintain harmonious relationships within the enterprise and also solve many problems faced during the period.

4. Drawbacks of appraisal techniques

Performance appraisal techniques have often failed to give a correct assessment of the employee, the causes of such failures are.

4.1. The supervisor plays dual and conflicting role of both the judge and the helper.

4.2. Too many objectives often cause confusion.

4.3. The supervisor feels that subordinate appraisal is not rewarding.

4.4. A considerable time gap exists between two appraisal programmes.

4.5. The skills required for daily administration and employee development are in conflict.

4.6. Poor communication keeps employees in the dark about what is expected of them.

4.7. There is a difference of opinion between a supervisor and a subordinate, in regard to the latter’s performance.

4.8. Feedback on appraisal is generally unpleasant for both supervisor and subordinate.

4.9. Unwillingness on the part of supervisors to tell employees plainly how to improve their performance.

Performance appraisal refers to the assessment of an employee’s actual performance, behavior on job and his or her potential for future performance. Numerous methods have been designed to appraise the performance of an employee. Some are traditional methods and some are modern methods of appraisal.

While traditional methods lay emphasis on the rating of the individual’s personality traits, such as initiative, dependability, drive, creativity, integrity, intelligence, leadership potential, etc.; the modern methods, on the other hand, place more emphasis on the evaluation of work results i.e. job achievements than the personal traits. Modern methods tend to be more objective and worthwhile.

360 degree appraisal can provide valuable insights and information or feedback regarding the “on-the-job” performance of the employee by anyone who comes into contact with him/her. They can be peers, superior, subordinates, team members, customers, suppliers, vendors etc.

360 degree appraisal is a powerful developmental tool because when conducted at regular intervals it helps to keep a track of the changes of others’ perceptions about the employees. A 360 degree appraisal is more suitable for the managers as it helps to assess their leadership and managing styles.

Management by Objectives process is to create empowered employees who have clarity of the roles and responsibilities expected from them, understand their objectives to be achieved and thus help in the achievement of organizational as well as personal goals.

Books and References

• Steve Fleetwood ., Anthony Hesketh, Explaining the Performance of Human Resource Management, Cambridge University Press.
• Brian E. Becker .The HR Scorecard : Linking people, Strategy and Performance.
• Byars, L & Rue, L. Human Resource Management. McGraw Hill.
• Mondy, R. Human Resource Management. Prentice Hall.

• Our Partners
• HR Management Software
• Applicant Tracking System
• Performance Management Software
• Plans and features
• Integrations

The Pros and Cons of Different Performance Appraisal Methods

Morgane Lança

Employee performance management is not a walk in the park, and there are many evaluation methods and tools to choose from. If you want to choose the right type of assessment for your specific business goals, you need to know the pros and cons of each performance review process.

In this article, we’ll give you all the information you need on these methods, along with details on their pros and cons for your company! As a bonus, you’ll find evaluation questions and evaluation examples you can use as inspiration.

Performance Evaluation Methods

1. traditional performance review or checklist method.

Employees are evaluated according to a checklist of predetermined key performance indicators and strengths and weaknesses such as time management skills. Supervisors determine whether the evaluated employee’s performance meets these criteria and provide structured goals. Most of the time, these employee appraisals take place annually and workers are rated on a linear scale.

• Structure and formality : Traditional performance reviews provide a structured framework for evaluating and discussing employee performance. They often follow a set process and timeline, which can help ensure consistency across the organization.
• Learning and development : These reviews offer an opportunity for supervisors to provide feedback on an employee’s performance, strengths, and areas for improvement. They can be a platform for discussing career goals, development plans, and performance expectations.
• Compensation and rewards : Annual employee reviews often play a role in determining compensation, promotions, and rewards. They provide a basis for identifying high-performing employees who may be eligible for salary increases, bonuses, or advancement opportunities.
• Performance documentation and tracking : Formal performance reviews typically involve documentation of the evaluation process and its outcomes. This can help build a record of performance discussions, achievements, and areas needing improvement, which can be useful for future reference and decision-making processes.
• Infrequent feedback : Annual performance reviews often imply that feedback is not shared on a daily basis. This time gap can hinder timely feedback and limit opportunities for ongoing communication and performance improvement.
• Bias and subjectivity : Annual employee performance reviews can lead to subjectivity, as they solely rely on the opinions of supervisors. This can lead to biased assessments based on personal perceptions and negative experiences for employees.
• Focus on past performance : These reviews often emphasize past performance rather than real-time or future-oriented assessments. They may not capture recent accomplishments or changes in an employee’s performance since the last review meeting.
• Anxiety and stress : The anticipation of an annual performance review can create anxiety and stress for employees. This once-a-year process can make the evaluation feel high-stakes and put pressure on both supervisors and employees.
• Lack of continuous feedback : Traditional reviews do not provide the feedback loop necessary for ongoing feedback and coaching. Employees may miss out on regular opportunities to receive guidance, suggestions for improvement, support, and recognition for their work.
• Administrative burden : Conducting annual reviews for all employees can be time-consuming, especially in large organizations. This can divert resources from other important tasks and potentially delay the feedback process.

The manufacturing industry, warehouses and retail companies can get great results from traditional employee appraisal systems. Indeed, these evaluations often focus on quantitative evaluation criteria that fit with repetitive tasks.

2. 360-Degree System

360-degree feedback consists of multi-rater feedback collected about an employee from their peers, their managers, and themselves. Obtaining constructive feedback coming from different perspectives helps gather comprehensive insights on employee performance strategies in the workplace.

• Feedback from multiple sources : Collecting feedback from peers, employees, and supervisors helps build a comprehensive evaluation.
• Upward feedback : This method encourages feedback from teams regarding their supervisor and management, meaning that everyone is accountable for their own performance.
• Broader perspective on employee performance : When conducted right, these evaluations provide a general and fair perspective of employee performance throughout the entire company.
• Encourages self-awareness and development : Receiving constructive feedback from multiple raters encourages self-reflection and development. Moreover, 360-degree feedback includes a self-evaluation that further fosters professional growth.
• Time-consuming process : Gathering feedback from multiple raters takes time and this method might be difficult to implement in your business.
• Personal biases : Office conflicts and personal opinions might influence raters and cause partial appraisals.
• Issues of anonymity : Anonymity – or lack thereof – may affect the quality and honesty of feedback.

All companies can use 360-degree feedback – it more so depends on the job category. Managers can particularly benefit from this process and it can be adjusted depending on the industry (companies that provide services can use client feedback for the evaluation). The downside is that this method can be quite costly and time consuming depending on your business reality.

3. Management by Objectives (MBO)

This method defines clear and concrete goals that the employee and the organization aim to achieve. These objectives may be quantitative or qualitative, and tracking them often requires regular performance meetings.

• Goal-setting and alignment with organizational objectives : With a MBO approach, self-development objectives and organizational goals are aligned for better workflows and greater productivity.
• Employee participation and ownership : Employees participate in goal setting, which is proven to multiply their chances to be engaged by 3,6. They are also more likely to be proud of their performance and committed to improving it.
• Clear framework : This method provides a clear framework for evaluating performance based on measurable goals such as SMART goals . This means that everyone has a clear idea of what they have to do and can see the impact of their productivity on the company’s mission.
• Challenge of setting measurable goals : Although measurable goals are effective, they can be difficult to set up depending on the company’s roles. This performance appraisal method might be more efficient in some teams than others.
• Focus on short-term goals : Defining short-term objectives may result in a narrow focus that neglects broader aspects of performance and sets aside development opportunities.
• Reliance on goal attainment : Solely focusing on goal attainment might lead to a lack of recognition for smaller but valuable contributions.

This method is interesting for companies that work by project completion – consulting and professional services, for instance. A relationship of trust and providing autonomy to employees is crucial, so the evaluated team dynamic matters here.

4. Self-assessment Method

Employees evaluate their own performance based on predefined criteria or goals to further encourage their personal commitment to their performance and growth.

• Self-reflection : Employees who reflect on their own performance have a better understanding of the challenges they need to overcome to become high performers. They are also more likely to request growth opportunities and share their ambitions with their managers.
• Ownership : Owning up to your individual performance and the way it impacts the team and the organization at large encourages growth and renewal.
• Self-development : Self-assessment is one of the best drivers of individual development as employees are able to regularly analyze their performance and its evolution over time.
• Lack of objectivity and biases : Evaluating your own performance is not an easy feat. Employees might be tempted to positively rate themselves to avoid questioning their practices. Objectively rating your strengths and weaknesses is a method that requires training beforehand.
• Issues of self-worth : On the contrary, some employees might have issues recognizing their self-worth and underrate themselves, which undermines their self-assessment.
• Need more varied perspectives : Self-assessments are not enough on their own and they need to be implemented alongside another appraisal method to be efficient, which might be complicated and time-consuming for some companies.

Industries which typically focus on qualitative criteria such as behavior and people skills can greatly benefit from using this appraisal method. This is the case of service industries, for example.

Of course, other appraisal methods exist, such as the 9-box grid appraisal and many others. However, with the previous examples we introduced, you will get a strong idea of which performance appraisal process will be the most efficient for your reality.

Some of these methods’ limitations can be addressed by implementing a healthy feedback culture consisting of regular check-ins, ongoing performance management, and effective performance management software tools. Indeed, regular and actionable feedback optimizes employee performance management and fosters productivity and development.

25 Performance Review Questions

Here are some sample questions covering the essential points you need to address during a performance appraisal, sorted by evaluation method:

Traditional review questions

1) What technical skills have you acquired or developed this year?

2) How have these skills supported your day-to-day performance?

3) How would you describe your general attitude at work?

4) How do you react to feedback, whether positive or negative?

5) Can you share an example of how you have used feedback to improve your work?

6) How do you ensure that your actions are aligned with the company’s culture and objectives?

Self-assessment questions

7) What are your strengths and weaknesses, and how would you assess them?

8) Are you satisfied with your performance over the last period? Are there any tasks or projects you would have completed differently?

9) What are your plans for future professional development?

10) What skills have you acquired recently and which ones would like to acquire in the future?

11) What individual goals would you like to set for the next period?

12) What have been your favorite projects to work on? Were there any projects you didn’t like as much?

13) What could we do to improve your daily work?

Objective-based evaluation questions

14) What objectives have you achieved during this evaluation period?

15) Could you describe the results achieved in relation to the objectives we set?

16) What challenges did you encounter in achieving your objectives?

17) How did you overcome these obstacles?

18) What objectives would you like to work on for the next period, and how do you think you can achieve them?

19) Do you feel that your objectives and your work have a direct impact team and organizational performance?

20) Do you think the goals you set were realistic? Were there too ambitious, or not ambitious enough?

360-degree appraisal questions

21) How would you rate your collaboration with team members?

22) Did you receive feedback from your colleagues? Has it been helpful?

23) How do you support and coach your employees on a daily basis?

24) What comments have your employees shared about your leadership skills?

25) Do you have a healthy relationship with your direct supervisor? Do you find their feedback relevant?

Examples of Performance Appraisal Results

Once you’ve asked your questions during the performance interview, you can write up your assessment. Here are some sample results to help you in your writing and summarizing process:

Positive Results

“This employee has met all the criteria detailed in our assessment scale. Their positive attitude and their concern to meet all the individual objectives defined during the previous appraisal make all the difference to team and company success. I wish to underline their good understanding with team members and their ability to collaborate effectively with colleagues. I also noticed leadership skills that we could develop and that could lead to a promotion in the future. Therefore, I have added this element to the performance objectives for the next appraisal.”

Underlining Progress

“After experiencing a dip in performance over the last period, this employee challenged themselves and progressed in every respect. In addition to improving their performance level, they took my feedback into account to implement better practices on a daily basis. These changes have turned the situation around and optimized the employee’s potential. For the next quarterly appraisal, I’d like this employee to focus on maintaining a stable level of productivity while learning to use tools that will help them continuously improve.”

Negative Results

“Despite our previous exchanges, this employee has not considered the constructive feedback shared and has not implemented good work practices. What’s more, their negative attitude is impacting the workplace and the well-being of team members. I have therefore put performance improvement measures in place and communicated the importance of solving these issues as quickly as possible. A further assessment will be organized next month to quickly analyze the situation and make the appropriate follow-up decisions.”

Whatever the method you choose, a successful appraisal must focus on finding solutions to improve employee productivity and motivation, as well as promoting skills development. Good performance management is an integral part of effective human resources management practices, and directly supports your strategic objectives and the success of your organization.

Do you want to implement the best performance appraisal method in your organization?

Folks performance management tools let you customize your entire process!

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[20] Performance appraisal methods: Here’s how to pick the best one!

• Post author: Shayanne Hill
• Post published: April 6, 2022
• Post category: Growth / Human Resources / Performance management
• Reading time: 35 mins read

A performance appraisal cycle in any company can get tricky. There are so many different methods that can be used. Hence, as a team leader or startup founder, it is your responsibility to use the right performance appraisal methods for your employees. This will in turn ensure better performance management and overall higher productivity.

What can you expect from this blog?

I have collated an extensive list of appraisal methods just for you! I have also included the pros and cons for each of these. So now you won’t have to worry about another performance appraisal ever again.

Download an employee evaluation template for free by clicking here!

What is a performance appraisal.

• Why are performance appraisals important?
• Download an employee evaluation template for your business now!!!

Difference between performance appraisal and performance management

• Traditional versus modern methods of performance appraisal?
• Straight ranking method
• Free-form or essay method
• Rating scales
• Confidential Report
• Paired comparison method
• Forced distribution method
• Forced choice method
• Grading scale
• Checklist method
• Field review method
• Critical incident method
• MBO or Management by objectives
• 360-degree feedback method
• 720-degree feedback method
• Behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS)
• Assessment Centre method
• HR Cost accounting method

Self-Appraisals

• Psychological appraisals
• Common errors in Performance appraisal
• Choosing the right appraisal method for my business

So now on to the most basic question of all,

A performance appraisal is a systematic and timely process whereby the performance of an employee’s job is evaluated. It is also often referred to as a performance review, performance evaluation or employee appraisal.

Firstly, employers use performance appraisals to evaluate the performance of employees. Following that, the report generated after is used to help in employee development by recommending the next steps.

What is a performance appraisal method?

These methods are tools and techniques used to evaluate employee performance. Different organizations use different methods based on what they want to get out of these reviews.

Here, the person conducting the review and giving feedback is called the appraiser. On the other hand, the person receiving the feedback or appraisal is called the appraisee.

Why is a performance appraisal important?

There are many benefits that come out of employee reviews. Right from helping an employee and their manager understand where the employee is excelling or falling short in the work. Reviews also help plan strategies that will help develop the employee’s skill set post appraisal.

Employee reviews also help boost the morale of the employee because the reviews show them you care about the employees. It can further help align the goals and ambitions of the individual employee with that of the company.

Performance appraisals are a structured way of understanding which employees are meeting their goals based on key results achieved!

Download an employee evaluation questionnaire now!! For FREE!

This questionnaire is well researched. It covers various parameters such as 

• Employee’s soft skills
• Job-related knowledge
• Ability to apply knowledge to the job

You can also rate the employee’s overall performance in an aggregated, yet easy to calculate score and rank your employees accordingly.

Performance management for starters is an entire process, including all of the following,

• Planning – Setting goals for an employee
• Monitoring – Helping them achieve those goals through constant feedback and guidance
• Appraisal – Evaluating the work of the employee, which is a performance appraisal
• Feedback – Closing the loop with feedback (or as many people are now calling it feed-forward) on their performance
• Next steps – Planning for the next steps to ensure employee growth and development

Performance appraisal as you can see, on the other hand, is just one step in the entire performance management cycle. But this one step has a lot of importance, as it affects all of the other areas within performance management.

Traditional performance appraisal methods versus modern performance appraisal methods

According to Strauss and Sayles (George Strauss and Leanord Sayles, writers of the book ‘Behavioral Strategies for Managers), there are two major classifications of performance appraisal methods, They are,

• Traditional methods of performance appraisal
• Modern methods of performance appraisal

Strauss and Sayles say that the major difference between the two is that traditional methods give more importance to the personality traits of the employee, factors such as initiative, dependability, drive, creativity and so on. On the other hand, modern methods focus on the job.

This also means that modern methods place more importance on job achievements. Also, they are more objective in nature and often tend to be more worthwhile.

You could also check out our blog on “ OKR The Ultimate Guide: Learn how to create goals for your team ” to understand how to check better goals for your team 

Traditional performance appraisal methods

As we have seen previously there are 2 major classifications of appraisal methods. Here below is a list of traditional methods, and the pros and cons of each of them. Then will also help you choose which of these methods will be most useful in your organization.

Straight ranking method for performance appraisal

This method is as simple as the name suggests. The employer or manager basically ranks all the employees based on their performance and various other parameters. It is one of the oldest and simplest forms of employee review.

Employees are ranked from best to worst or highest or lowest on various factors. In this way, the employer understands which are the topmost-performing and lowest-performing employees in the team.

For example, if there are 5 members in the team (for simplicity- A, B, C, D & E). The employer will then assign ranks to each of them. Much like this, A-3, B-2, C-1, D-5, E-4 (1 being the best and 5 being the worst).

• Easy to use. Especially in smaller teams.
• The team lead understands who is better than who.
• Ranking helps identify the top performers in the group.
• This method does not explain how much an employee is better than another
• Not scalable. Because the bigger the team, the more challenging it is to rank.

Essay method for performance appraisal

The essay method is also known as the free-form method. Here, the manager or the appraiser writes an essay or statement about the employee. The major focus here is to write about the strengths and weaknesses of the employee on the job. The statement also focuses on the different steps that could be taken to rectify the drawbacks in the employee’s performance.

There are 2 ways in which this essay is written. On one hand, it could be single-handedly written and framed by the appraiser. On the other hand, the appraiser could work on it in collaboration with the employee in question.

As the name suggests, this method is fairly unstructured. As a result, the manager is free is talk about all the factors and concerns that need to be addressed in the employee evaluation. This is also extremely personal in nature, and if used in collaboration with other appraisal methods, it can prove to be very insightful.

The appraiser is not limited to a set of questions. He can also then assign varying weightage to different areas of importance and work as needed.

The test allows for a great deal of freedom of expression, in terms of being able to write about the employee’s job and achievements.

This method is not so easy to administer. This is because an administer of this method could find it extremely time-consuming and difficult.

The essay method is also extremely subjective in nature, and not very easy to compare across different employees. The result of this test is also often limited to the language skills and abilities of the appraiser.

Very often, the biggest advantage of this method- freedom of expression- becomes a challenge when the manager isn’t able to express him/herself very well.

Rating scales for performance appraisal

Rating scales as performance appraisal methods are quite commonly used among employers. It is required to rate employees on a particular scale based on various factors and traits.

Rating scales could either be numeric in nature (e.g. 1 to 5, where 5 is the best and 1 is the worst) or alphabetic in nature (a, b, c, d, e, where e= excellent, c=satisfactory and so on…).

Rating scales could also have narrative options to choose from (e.g. “acceptable behaviour”, “fails to complete tasks assigned in a given time” etc.)

Pros and cons:

A major advantage here is that appraisers can apply this method to any job role. However, each of the variants of the rating scale come with their own set of pros and cons.

Say, for example, a 3-level rating scale could be very simple to administer, but may not be complex enough to address the subtle nuances of complex jobs. On the other hand, even a 5-level scale may not be effective as very often, managers tend to have a tendency to choose the central option or drift upwards of the choices.

Confidential Report for performance appraisal

As the name suggests, this form of performance appraisal is highly confidential. The immediate supervisor of the employee is usually the one who writes the report. Many times, only this particular supervisor and upper-level management have access to this report. Yup, you read that right. Even the employee whom the report is about does not get access to this review.

The main focus is performance evaluation and not performance improvement. While private-sector organizations do not usually use this method, it is quite common in public companies and government organizations.

• It is a very detailed and qualitative assessment
• Useful to decision-makers, especially when it comes to providing transfers, salary hikes etc.
• Generally submitted only once a year, so not much load of work on the manager
• Since it’s submitted only once a year, there is no continuous evaluation of the employee, hence low scope for employee development
• Employees themselves don’t have access to the report and as a result, cannot take any corrective measures wherever required
• Highly subjective and open to biases

Paired comparison method as a performance appraisal method

In this form of appraisal, each employee in a team is compared to every single other employee in that team. Say, for example, the team is made up of A, B, C, D & E, then A is compared with B, C, D & E. The appraiser will then repeat the same thing for all the other employees.

Here, the number of times an employee fares better than other team members is noted down and eventually, ranks are given accordingly. 

The number of pairs formed can be calculated by n(n-1)/2. In the case of the above example, 5(5-1)/2=10 pairs will be formed.

• A better version of the straight ranking method we saw earlier in this blog
• All employees are compared based on similar parameters and hence relatively fair as a process
• Very time consuming
• This method is not scalable, as in larger organizations it might be impractical to compare so many employees with each other.

Forced distribution method for performance appraisal

We all know what a Normal distribution in statistics is (more famously known as the ‘Bell Curve’). Here, appraisers fit all their employees within a bell curve based on their performance on the job. Appraisers have been using this method widely used in large organizations since the 1990s. In this method is it believed that employee performance within a team or an organization conforms to a bell curve.

For example, it says that, roughly, 10% of your employees are really bad, 15% are satisfactory, 50% are average, 15% are good and 10% are excellent. In the most basic form of this method, managers fit employees into 5 categories, excellent, good, average, satisfactory and bad.

In this case, most employees get put into the average section. The excellent employees are rewarded, while the bad ones are put into performance improvement programs

• In the rating method, we had seen that most managers usually tend to give all employees average or above-average ratings. This method helps overcome that problem.
• This method reduces some scope for bias
• May encourage healthy competition among team members
• Helps pinpoint the extremely good employees and the ones that need serious help to buck up
• People often tend to question if the bell curve is an appropriate representation of human behaviour and the method is sometimes seen as outdated or old
• There is a lack of transparency in this method as only the appraiser knows why they slotted the employees the way they did

Forced choice method for performance appraisal

In comparison to the forced distribution method, this one is pretty simple to understand and execute. An employer is given is series of statements and they must mention if those statements are true or false for a given employee. Different statements may carry varying weightage. This would depend on the importance of that statement and the overall appraisal aim.

Examples of statements here could include, “The employee finishes all the tasks assigned on time” or “The employee often reaches the office late”

• Objective approach since options are true or false
• Save the time of the appraiser.
• Scalable since the answers are only true or false.
• Since evaluators aren’t aware of the weightage of each statement until the final result arrives, it is considered quite fair.
• The creation of set statements may be time-consuming, especially in larger companies that have many and varying job roles.

Performance appraisal using the Grading scale

In this method, the appraiser gives the employee a grade for each parameter. The grades often look like this

• Above average
• Below average
• Unsatisfactory

The evaluator judges the performance of the employee based on the job achievements across various factors and considerations.

• Very simple to administer
• Does not take up much time for the administer
• Paints a very clear picture of how the employee has performed over the said span of time
• Since this system does not require any reasoning for the choice of grade, the method can be considered to lack transparency

Checklist method as a performance appraisal method

This is an extremely simple appraisal method as it only requires the appraiser to tick mark statements that are applicable to a given employee. In a more recent version of this method, the makers of the test assign different weightage to each statement based on how important they are. Based on the answers and the weightage, a score a calculated and assigned to the employee.

• Extremely easy to administer.
• Saves a lot of time.
• Objective, since it only required a tick mark near each statement.
• Difficult to implement in big organizations that have many and varying roles.
• Selecting and not selecting a statement is very limiting as an appraisal method. The appraiser may need to club this method with another for better insights.
• Since the evaluator does not provide reasons, it is difficult to understand why he or she selected or didn’t select a particular statement.

Performance appraisal using the field review method

In this method, the appraisee does not receive an appraisal from their immediate supervisor or manager like in most cases. Instead, a member of the HR department or from the corporate team evaluates the employee.

The appraiser conducts interviews both with the appraisee as well as with their supervisor and also observes the employee as they work. This gives the appraiser an all-around qualitative yet objective view of the way the employee works.

• There isn’t much pressure on the appraisee, since their direct supervisor isn’t the evaluator.
• An outsider who doesn’t work continuously with the employee does not know how the employee works on a daily basis.
• An outsider is also not familiar with the employee’s day-to-day working conditions that would in turn drive his/her behaviour at work.
• Performance appraisal and management are important aspects of employee engagement and the essence of that is completely lost in this method of appraisal.

Critical incident method as a performance appraisal method

In this method, the appraiser asks the employee a set of questions pertaining to bast behaviours or incidents. The appraisee then describes the incident in great detail explaining all the factors that played a role in the unfolding of that incident.

The appraiser gathers information about various incidents that occurred while on the job -> Collects facts about these incidents -> Analyses the data collected -> Determine the underlying issues -> Reports the evaluation and presents potential solutions.

The focus here lies not just on the hard skills but also on the soft skills of the employee. It helps define the appraisee’s knowledge, skill-sets, attitude and many other attributes that drive their behaviour. The focus is also on the employee’s ability to perform in critical situations, either where they have done excellently well or fail to do so.

• Unlike other methods, this appraisal method focuses on rare, unusual events and how the employee performs in such scenarios.
• A cost-effective method.
• Does not restrict the appraiser or the appraisee to any framework.
• Takes into consideration the appraisee’s side of the incident.
• This method can be extremely subjective.
• Time-consuming for the evaluator and hence not a scalable option (in larger organizations).

Modern performance appraisal methods

So far we have looked at all the possible traditional appraisal methods you can use in your company. Now we shall see a list of modern methods along with the pros and cons of each of them.

MBO or Management by objectives for performance appraisal

Management by objectives, also very commonly called MBO, is an appraisal method where managers and subordinates usually sit together and come up with a set of goals and objectives. Once these goals are decided upon, the 2 have regular meetings and follow-ups to track progress.

This method is generally used in high performing teams, by the use to setting S.M.A.R.T. goal s for employees and ensuring the achievement of these goals. The focus during this process is on setting tangible goals that can be monitored.

See also our blog on goal setting by clicking here -> “Goal setting for startups and SMEs: Set goals in 7 steps”

• Since the manager and subordinate sit together to set goals, there is a mutual agreement on the workload and employees do not feel overburdened.
• Periodical follow-ups ensure continuous tracking and review of the work being done. Continuous feedback automatically results in higher efficiency.
• There is no ambiguity in terms of the work that has to be done and the feedback received.
• Employee participation in goal setting makes them feel motivated and also part of the larger organization.
• Goals can be aligned with employees’ career ambitions and hence allows employees to develop their career as well.
• Requires continuous involvement of top management and hence can be time-consuming for them.
• Limited application as goals once set may rarely be subject to any change, and also may not be suitable for all roles within an organization.

Performance appraisal using the 360-degree feedback method

The 360-degree feedback method of employee appraisal is becoming extremely popular within organizations. In this method, basically, the employee receives feedback or appraisal from all around i.e. 360-degrees.

What this essentially means, is that, every single area the employee interacts with, one person from that area provides feedback. Say, for example, a sales representative is up for appraisal. This person will get feedback from their immediate supervisor, a peer (another sales rep they work closely with), a couple of clients the sales rep has worked with and sometimes even a subordinate.

Exactly as the name suggests, the feedback mechanism is quite literally an all-around, 360-degree system.

You could also check out our blog “ How Balanced Scorecard [BSC] can unlock peak performance for you “

• Since the feedback is taken from so many people, it is extremely thorough.
• No chance of any bias or partiality.
• Different aspects of the employee’s work get reviews through this method.
• It can help improve productivity and work relationships.
• Increases transparency across the various departments within the organization.
• Subordinates or peers could resort to dishonest (tending towards only good) feedback in order to safeguard professional relationships.
• Extremely time-consuming process.

Performance appraisal using the 720-degree feedback method

This method is identical to the 360-degree feedback mechanism with one single exception. Here, the 360-degree feedback is done twice. The first time, the feedback is shared with the employee with the intention of developing a performance improvement plan for the appraisee.

The second time, the 360-degree review is done, the focus is on checking the success of the performance improvement plan and then better it if needed.

The pros and cons of the 720-degree review and similar to that of the 360-degree review method.

Performance appraisal method –  Behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS)

This performance appraisal method uses a more descriptive way to rate employees. Instead of simply putting out a statement and having the appraiser choose options like excellent, above average, average, below average and unsatisfactory, the options themselves are more informative.

• Since the options are so specific, there is almost no space for subjectivity here
• Results turn out to be very accurate.
• Saves time for the appraiser.
• Completely individualised. This means that every role will have statements specific to them.
• The last positive point mentioned can also prove to be the first problem because it becomes difficult to create the test for larger organizations that have many and varying roles.
• Managers tend to select average or above-average responses, so responses might not be 100% accurate.

Assessment Centre method for performance appraisal

The assessment centre method is also often used in various selection procedures to ensure that candidate is the right person for a job. This could be used in the case of inter-department transfers etc. Assessment centres combine a variety of different activities such as role-plays, interviews, group activities, presentations and so on to ensure an overall analysis of an employee.

A combination of the results of all the above-mentioned activities is used to get a very deep understanding of the employee and their development in the company.

• Very in-depth report.
• Accuracy levels are high because of the multiple and all-around reviews.
• This method is highly adaptable to various job profiles and roles.
• Creates high employee engagement and is completely different from regular monotonous appraisal methods.
• Extremely time-consuming.
• Can be an expensive affair, since it involves so many different activities for each employee.

Check out our salary increment breakup to understand how to divide salary increment across employees in a fair way!

Hr cost accounting method as a performance appraisal method.

Just as the name suggests- accounting- this method tracks employee performance from a monetary standpoint. How?

Calculate the cost of retaining the employee (more commonly known as the employee’s CTC or cost to company). Then compare this with the value generated by the employee in terms of the service provided and the work done. Do this by considering the improvement in revenue generated during the review period, sales deals closed by the employee, increase in subscriber count and so on (obviously these are more for marketing or sales employees).

This method is ideal for start-ups and small businesses, especially since one employee’s performance plays such a huge role in the growth (or lack thereof!) of the company.

• It is an accurate and objective method since it is quantitative and doesn’t take into consideration people’s opinions
• Helps determine the monetary value the employee adds to the company and hence helps make changes (if needed) to the employee’s salary package.
• An easy method to compare 2 or more employees based on monetary value-added.
• There are no specific guidelines to measure the value of human resources within an organization.
• Human Resources accounting is based on assumptions that may not always hold true. For example, you would assume that an employee will continue to work for you over a fixed period of time, which may or may not be true.

The name here itself is pretty self-explanatory. The employee writes their own review. So I’m going to jump straight to the pros and cons for this one!

• Ownership of the appraisal is placed on the employees, so they feel important. Maybe even motivated to do better.
• Managers will get insights into why an employee works the way they do. This may otherwise be rare in other forms of appraisals.
• Employees feel more engaged as this method calls for the employee to communicate more about their performance. This may help managers work better in coming up with performance improvement plans.
• Here, perceptions could be very skewed, because employees could end up being overly lenient or extremely hard on themselves. In both cases, the review is pointless. So, no objectivity.
• Resentment may arise if negative feedback is not taken well.

Performance appraisal using psychological appraisals

Psychological appraisals are generally more future-focused as opposed to reviewing the past performance of the employee. What I mean here is that psychological appraisal methods are used to understand the potential of employees, what they might be good at but their current job doesn’t showcase it.

These are a series of tests and interviews conducted by trained psychologists. They include in-depth interviews, tests, discussions and so on.

• Since these tests are conducted by psychologists, there is no scope for any bias to creep in.
• Information becomes available not just about the employee’s past job achievements, but also about their potential.
• Lack of trained professionals to conduct the tests and assessments.
• Results could get skewed because of nervous and anxious employees.

Common errors made during a performance appraisal cycle

There are many different performance appraisal methods as we have seen so far. But there are also many errors that are common to a lot of these methods.

Yeah, I know, to err is human! But as a small business owner, manager or team leader, you need to make sure you do your best for the sake of your employees and your company. And, being aware of these errors is the first step toward rectifying them.

So, here are some of the errors and biases you must be aware of during an employee review process.

Stereotyping

Stereotyping occurs when a bunch of concepts or ideas get attributed to a particular set of people over a period of time. These ideas then play a role and affect the way people behave towards these sets of people. Stereotypes could be based on race, gender, religion etc.

In the case of performance appraisals, the appraiser can very easily let such a bias come in the way of honest feedback.

Halo effect

When someone says halo, you automatically think of an angel, no? Pretty much in the same, the halo effect implies that your perception of a person always tends to be on the positive side.

Usually, this happens when an appraiser notices that an employee is doing very well in one aspect of their job, and generalises it to everything else they do. You think better of them than they actually are. This could translate into overly positive feedback and reviews. So, employees will never truly understand how they are performing.

Single deficiency focus

This is also often referred to as the “horns effect” exactly the opposite of the “halo effect”.

As the name very clearly says, here, the appraiser gets hung up on a single problem, error, deficiency on the appraisee and generalises that across all areas.

Distribution errors

While the halo effect and the single deficiency error talk specifically about biases that affect a single employees review, the distribution error affects the overall review of all the employees. Let’s see how distribution errors play a role in performance appraisals. The overall reviews get skewed in this way as shown in the graph.

There are 3 types of distribution errors as mentioned below:

Centrality errors: Here, all the reviews tend to be average. Most of the employees get average feedback. The problem here is that the poor performers get feedback better than they deserve, while top performers don’t get good enough reviews.

Leniency errors: Leniency errors refer to when a manager gives all the appraisees good or above-average reviews/appraisals.

Recency errors

This is a very common error made by managers and supervisors during performance appraisals. In this case, the appraiser’s reviews get affected based on any event that may have occurred in the recent past with the employee in question.

Say, for example, if an employee recently broke their own sales target which resulted in a very high number of new clients for the company, the appraiser will let that one incident impact the entire review, leading to an overall positive response. Whereas on the other hand, if the same employee were to get into an argument with another employee before the performance appraisal, then that would negatively affect the overall review.

Attribution error

Attribution is a process whereby, a manager tends to make assumptions about an employee’s motives. This leads to extremely subjective responses by the appraiser for the appraisee.

An example of this situation would be, if an employee gave a negative answer for something related to the job, the manager would assume that the employee has negative feelings towards his/her job.

Choosing the right performance appraisal methods for your small business

Different methods are targeted toward different results. How you select which appraisal method is best for your company depends totally on the kind of reviews you’re looking for and the end goal. Factors such as

• Number of employees to appraise
• The budget allocated for the task
• Time within which the review must happen
• Level of expertise of the person conducting the appraisal

Employee appraisal and employee performance management and key elements of employee engagement. So, selecting the right appraisal method also becomes very important.

Once you have selected the method or methods best suited to your company, you need to implement it well and ensure that a robust performance improvement plan follows the appraisal. But be sure to reward your top-performing employee too 😉

Performance appraisal Methods – FAQs

The most common methods of employee performance appraisal are

1. 360-degree feedback

2. Rating scales

3. Grading scales

4. MBOs i.e. Management by objectives

5. Self-Assessment

Click here to see the whole list of modern and traditional performance appraisal methods

Performance appraisal is basically when a manager or supervisor evaluates an employee’s performance on their job over a period of time. Appraisal methods can typically be classified into two categories- Traditional methods and Modern methods of performance appraisal.

Not to be considered as tax, legal, financial or HR advice. Regulations change over time so please consult a lawyer, accountant  or Labour Law  expert for specific guidance.

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Performance Appraisal

What is a performance appraisal? Learn the purpose and methodologies of a successful appraisal with practical examples.

Ivan Andreev

Demand Generation & Capture Strategist, Valamis

October 24, 2018 · updated July 10, 2024

12 minute read

What is a performance appraisal?

The purpose of a performance appraisal.

• How to organize a performance appraisal process

Performance appraisal examples

Performance appraisal methods.

• 5 Modern method of performance appraisal

A performance appraisal is the periodic assessment of an employee’s job performance as measured by the competency expectations set out by the organization.

The performance assessment often includes both the core competencies required by the organization and also the competencies specific to the employee’s job.

The appraiser, often a supervisor or manager, will provide the employee with constructive, actionable feedback based on the assessment. This in turn provides the employee with the direction needed to improve and develop in their job.

Based on the type of feedback , a performance appraisal is also an opportunity for the organization to recognize employee achievements and future potential.

The purpose of a performance appraisal is two-fold: It helps the organization to determine the value and productivity that employees contribute, and it also helps employees to develop in their own roles.

Benefit for organization

Employee assessments can make a difference in the performance of an organization. They provide insight into how employees are contributing and enable organizations to:

• Identify where management can improve working conditions in order to increase productivity and work quality.
• Address behavioral issues before they impact departmental productivity.
• Encourage employees to contribute more by recognizing their talents and skills
• Support employees in skill and career development
• Improve strategic decision-making in situations that require layoffs, succession planning, or filling open roles internally

Benefit for employee

Performance appraisals are meant to provide a positive outcome for employees. The insights gained from assessing and discussing an employee’s performance can help:

• Recognize and acknowledge the achievements and contributions made by an employee.
• Recognize the opportunity for promotion or bonus.
• Identify and support the need for additional training or education to continue career development.
• Determine the specific areas where skills can be improved.
• Motivate an employee and help them feel involved and invested in their career development.
• Open discussion to an employee’s long-term goals.

Career development plan template

This template helps employees and leaders plan together for career growth: set goals, assess skills, and make a plan.

How to organize a performance appraisal process

Conducting a performance review with an employee requires skill and training on the part of the appraiser. The negative perception that is often associated with the performance appraisal is due in part to a feeling of being criticized during the process.

A performance appraisal is meant to be the complete opposite. Often, the culprit is in the way the appraisal is conducted via the use of language.

The way the sender of a message uses language determines how the other person interprets the message once received. This can include tone of voice, choice of words, or even body language.

Because a performance appraisal is meant to provide constructive feedback, it is crucial that appropriate language and behavior are used in the process.

Human Resources (HR) are the support system for managers and supervisors to be trained in tactfully handling the appraisal process.

The performance appraisal process:

• The assessment process is usually facilitated by Human Resources, who assist managers and supervisors in conducting the individual appraisals within their departments.
• An assessment method should be established.
• Required competencies and job expectations need to be drafted for each employee.
• Individual appraisals on employee performance are conducted.
• A one on one interview is scheduled between the manager and employee to discuss the review.
• Future goals should be discussed between employee and manager.
• A signed-off version of the performance review is archived.
• Appraisal information is utilized by human resources for appropriate organizational purposes, such as reporting, promotions, bonuses or succession planning.

Let’s take a look at one example of a Manager speaking to an employee during a performance appraisal. Below are three versions of the same example.

Compare the difference in language and behavior and how it can change the end-result:

1. An appropriate appraisal example with mixed feedback

“We can start the review by looking at how each project went for you this quarter. Does that sound OK? First, every project you have worked on in the last four months has met the expected deadline and were all within their budgets. I see one project here was even early. They were all implemented successfully. Well done. You have succeeded in the criteria expected of a Project Manager here at ABC Company. Let’s take a look at a few areas where you might be able to develop your project management skills further. In Project A, B, and C, a few team members expressed that they were unsure what to begin working on in the first few meetings and felt that they were engaging in their tasks a bit late. When they tried to express this in later meetings, they felt there was hostility towards them. For upcoming Projects D, E, and F, is there anything that can be done to get team members up and running more quickly? Could more detailed task planning be completed prior to the project kick-off?”

Debrief : This example removes the errors from the first example and puts them in a more constructive light.

• The appraisal begins by involving the employee and making them feel like a valued part of the process.
• The appraiser focuses on measurable outcomes, such as each individual project, instead of broad, baseless generalizations.
• Positives are the focus of the assessment.
• Areas for improvement are offered in a constructive and neutral format by referring to specific events in the employee’s day-to-day tasks.
• The employee is given the opportunity to problem-solve the situation and contribute to their own sense of self-development.
• Constructive solutions are offered so the employee has a clear idea on what they can do better next time.

2. An inappropriate negative appraisal example

“Let’s talk about some of the problems. You are never proactive when it comes to the start of a new project. Things are left too late and there are often complaints. I have heard that your attitude has been less than positive during project meetings. You seem to have things going on at home right now, but they shouldn’t be intruding on your work.”

This example is extreme, but it conveys most of the errors that can occur in a performance review.

• The appraisal begins with a negative. It has been shown that starting with the positives can set the tone for the appraisal and helps employees feel more receptive to feedback.
• The appraiser speaks in a negative, accusatory language and bases the assessment on assumption instead of measured facts. An appraisal needs to be based on measured facts.
• The appraiser makes the discussion personal; a performance review should remain focused on the contributions of the employee to the job and never be about the individual as a person.
• Phrases like “ you are ” or “ you always ” are generalizations about the employee; a performance appraisal needs to be about specific contributions to specific job tasks.

3. An appropriate appraisal example for underperformers

“I wanted to talk to you today about your performance during the last quarter. Looking at the completed project schedules and project debriefs here, I see that each of the five projects was kicked off late. Team members reported having trouble getting the resources and information they needed to start and complete their tasks. Each project was delivered a week or more late and had considerable budget creep. Project A was over by $7000. Project B was over by $9,000, for example. These budget overages were not authorized. I think we really have potential to turn this around and I really want to see you succeed. The role of Project Manager requires you to kick-off projects on-time, make sure your team members have the resources they need, and it’s crucial that any budget issues or delays are discussed with myself or the other Manager. For the upcoming projects this month, I’d like you to draft a project plan one week prior to any project kick-off. We can go over it together and figure out where the gaps might be. Did you have any suggestions on how you might be able to improve the punctuality of your projects or effectiveness of how they are run?”

Debrief : This example deals with an employee who seems to be struggling. The appraiser unfortunately has a lot of negative feedback to work through, but has successfully done so using appropriate language, tone and examples:

• The feedback does not use accusatory language or tone, nor does it focus on the person. This is especially important at the start of a performance review when the topic is being introduced. Being accusatory can make an employee feel uncomfortable, upset or defensive and set the wrong tone for the rest of the review. Comments should remain focused on the employee’s work.
• The comments are constructive and specific. The appraiser uses specific examples with evidence to explain the poor performance and does not make general, unsubstantiated comments. Making general, broad comments like “Your projects have a lot of problems and are always late” are unfair as they cannot be proven. The tone also creates hostility and does not help the employee to solve the problem.
• The appraiser offers a positive comment about improving the situation and also a specific solution to improve the performance. The point of a performance review is to motivate and help an employee, not cut them down.
• The appraiser asks for the input of the employee on how to solve the problem. This empowers the employee to become more involved in their skill development and ends a negative review on a positive note.

4. The inflated appraisal example

“I don’t think we have too much to talk about today as everything seems just fine. Your projects are always done on time and within budget. I’m sure you made the right decisions with your team to achieve all of that. You and I definitely think alike when it comes to project management. Keep up the great work.”

Debrief : This example appears like a perfect performance appraisal, but it’s actually an example of how to inappropriate:

• The feedback glosses over any specifics regarding the employee’s actual work and instead offers vague, inflated comments about everything being great. Feedback needs to refer to specific events.
• Any mention of trouble on the team is ignored. A performance review needs to discuss performance issues before they become serious later on.
• The appraiser compares the employee to himself. This could be referred to as the “halo effect”, where the appraiser allows one aspect of the employee to cloud his or her judgement.
• Nobody is perfect; every appraisal should offer some form of improvement that the employee can work towards, whether it is honing a skill or learning a new skill.

There are many ways an organization can conduct a performance appraisal, owing to the countless different methods and strategies available.

In addition, each organization may have their own unique philosophy making an impact on the way the performance assessment is designed and conducted.

A performance review is often done annually or semi-annually at the minimum, but some organizations do them more often.

5 Modern methods of performance appraisal

There are some common and modern appraisal methods that many organizations gravitate towards, including:

1. Self-evaluation

In a self-evaluation assessment, employees first conduct their performance assessment on their own against a set list of criteria.

The pro is that the method helps employees prepare for their own performance assessment and it creates more dialogue in the official performance interview.

The con is that the process is subjective, and employees may struggle with either rating themselves too high or too low.

2. Behavioral checklist

A Yes or No checklist is provided against a series of traits. If the supervisor believes the employee has exhibited a trait, a YES is ticked.

If they feel the employee has not exhibited the trait, a NO is ticked off. If they are unsure, it can be left blank.

The pro is the simplicity of the format and its focus on actual work-relate tasks and behaviors (ie. no generalizing).

The con is that there is no detailed analysis or detail on how the employee is actually doing, nor does it discuss goals.

3. 360-degree feedback

This type of review includes not just the direct feedback from the manager and employee, but also from other team members and sources.

The review also includes character and leadership capabilities.

The pro is that it provides a bigger picture of an employee’s performance.

The con is that it runs the risk of taking in broad generalizations from outside sources who many not know how to provide constructive feedback .

4. Ratings scale

A ratings scale is a common method of appraisal. It uses a set of pre-determined criteria that a manager uses to evaluate an employee against.

Each set of criteria is weighted so that a measured score can be calculated at the end of the review.

The pro is that the method can consider a wide variety of criteria, from specific job tasks to behavioral traits. The results can also be balanced thanks to the weighting system. This means that if an employee is not strong in a particularly minor area, it will not negatively impact the overall score.

The con of this method is the possible misunderstanding of what is a good result and what is a poor result; managers need to be clear in explaining the rating system.

5. Management by objectives

This type of assessment is a newer method that is gaining in popularity. It involves the employee and manager agreeing to a set of attainable performance goals that the employee will strive to achieve over a given period of time.

At the next review period, the goals and how they have been met are reviewed, whilst new goals are created.

The pro of this method is that it creates dialogue between the employee and employer and is empowering in terms of personal career development.

The con is that it risks overlooking organizational performance competencies that should be considered.

L&D strategy framework

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An integrated indicator for evaluating scientific papers: considering academic impact and novelty

• Published: 13 September 2024

Cite this article

• Zhaoping Yan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8198-5574 1 &
• Kaiyu Fan   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0006-8884-4073 2  

The assessment of scientific papers has long been a challenging issue. Although numerous studies have proposed quantitative indicators for assessing scientific papers, these studies overlooked the citation characteristics and the novelty of scientific knowledge implied in the textual information of papers. Therefore, this paper constructs an integrated indicator to evaluate scientific papers from both citation and semantic perspectives. Firstly, we propose weighted citations to measure the academic impact of scientific papers, which takes time heterogeneity and citation sentiment factors into consideration. Secondly, we capture the novelty of scientific papers from a semantic perspective, utilizing FastText to represent papers as text embeddings and applying the local outlier factor to calculate it. To validate the performance of our approach, the bullwhip effect domain and the ACL Anthology corpus are used for case studies. The results demonstrate that our indicator can effectively identify outstanding papers, thus providing a more comprehensive evaluation method for evaluating academic research.

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Acknowledgements

This manuscript was supported by the Postgraduate Reaserch & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (No. KYCX24_0108).

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Zhaoping Yan

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Yan, Z., Fan, K. An integrated indicator for evaluating scientific papers: considering academic impact and novelty. Scientometrics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05150-9

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Received : 10 March 2024

Accepted : 30 August 2024

Published : 13 September 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05150-9

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