PROBLEM IN PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

The problem with subjective measure is the rating which is not verifiable by others and has the opportunity for bias. The rate biases include: (a) halo effect (b) the error of central tendency, (c) the leniency and strictness biases (d) personal prejudice, and (e) the recent performance effect

(a) Halo Effect: It is the tendency of the raters to depend excessively on the rating of one trait or behavioral consideration in rating all others traits or behavioral considerations. One way of minimizing the halo effect is appraising all the employees by one trait before going to rate on the basis of another trait.

(b) The error of Central Tendency: Some raters follow play safe policy in rating by rating all the employees around the middle point of the rating scale and they avoid rating the people at both the extremes of the scale. They follow play safe policy because of answerability to management or lack of knowledge about the job and person he is rating or least interest in his job.

(c) The Leniency and Strictness: The leniency bias crops when some raters have a tendency to be liberal in their rating by assigning higher rates consistently. Such ratings do not serve any purpose. Equally damaging one is assigning consistently low rates.

(d) Personal Prejudice: If the rater dislikes any employee or any group, he may rate them at the lower end, which may distort the rating purpose and affect the career of these employees.

(e) The Recent performance Effect: The raters generally remember the recent actions, of the employee at the time of rating and rate on the basis of these recent actions favorable or unfavorable than on the whole activities.

Other factors that are considered as problems are

· Failure of the superiors in conducting performance appraisal and post performance appraisal interview.

· Most part of the appraisal is based on subjectivity.

· Less reliability and validity of the performance appraisal techniques.

· Negative ratings affect interpersonal relations and industrial relations system.

· Influence of external environmental factors and uncontrollable internal factors.

· Feedback and post appraisal interview may have a setback on production.

· Management emphasizes on punishment rather than development of an employee in performance appraisal.

· Some ratings particularly about the potential appraisal are purely based on guess work.

The other problems of performance appraisal reported by various studies are:

Relationship between appraisal rates and performances after promotions was not significant.
Some superiors completed appraisal reports within a few minutes.
Absence of inter-rater reliability.
The situation was unpleasant in feedback interview.
Superiors lack that tact of offering the suggestions constructively to subordinates.
Supervisors were often confused due to too many objectives of performance appraisal.
Advantages of Performance Appraisal through Computers:

There will be an objective analysis of traits of both the superior and subordinate and a chance to subordinate to express his views even after performance appraisal.

An employee shall express his emotional needs and his value system which may not be possible direct face to face with superior. Communication through computer overcomes the communication barrier between the superior and subordinate.

Computer based appraisal will remove the inherent weakness of the appraisal system that is subjective assessment of vague and abstract performance targets, unclear guidelines for appraisal etc.