1. Evaluating Employee Performance
Guide for UHS 2062 students at UTM, Malaysia
Prepared by : Siti Rokiah Siwok ,

2. How important ?

3. The importance of evaluating employee performance
It is crucial to the organization to see if:
Predictors of job performance are indeed reliable.
The employee training programs are effective.
Other organizational programs or changes are effective.

4. The importance of evaluating employee performance
It is important to the employee for:
Career advancement
Pay increase
Promotion
Feedback to improve performance and recognize weakness.
Providing information to achieve work goals.

5. Effective and Legal Performance Appraisal Systems:
Are job-related and based on a job analysis
Are properly administered
Formal
Standardized
Not too complicated
Provide specific feedback
Focus on behaviors rather than traits
Ratings are documented
Use appropriate raters
raters are trained
all relevant raters are used
Raters used must be relevant and qualified

6. The Performance Appraisal Process
Step 1: Create a task force which consist of people from all levels in the organization.
Step 2: Determine the Reason/s for evaluating employee performance.
Step 3: Identify environmental and cultural variables that could affect the system
Step 4: Determine who will evaluate performance
Step 5: Select the best method to accomplish goals

7. The Performance Appraisal Process
Step 6: Train raters
Step 7 : Observe and document performance
Step 8 : Evaluate performance
Step 9: Communicate appraisal results to employees
Step 10 : Make personnel decisions

8. Step 1: Create a task force

9. Step 2: Determine the reason/s
Different appraisal techniques are appropriate/good for different purpose.
Example:
Forced-choice rating scale is excellent for determining compensation but terrible for training purposes,
or 360-degree feedback is excellent for improving employee performance but inappropriate for use to determine salary increase.

10. Step 2: Determine reason/s
Most systems have no goal
Thus most appraisal systems are not successful ( Coens and Jenkins, 2002)
Most common reasons for performance appraisal are for employees feedback and training, to determine salary increase, making promotion decisions, making termination decisions and conducting personnel research

11. Reasons for the Appraisal:
Feedback and training (65%)
Personnel decisions
Raises (86%)
Promotions (45%)
Termination decisions (30%)
Personnel Research
Legal or certification reasons

12. Step 3: Identify environmental and cultural variables
Look into the organization to see what is going on:
Supervisors overworked?
Any funding?
Are employees cohesive or otherwise?

13. Step 4: Determine who will evaluate performance

14. Is evaluation solely by supervisors accurate?

15. 360º Feedback or multi-source Feedback
Upper management
Direct supervisor
Peers
Subordinates
Support staff
Customers/the public
Vendors
Self
Job 1 Job 2
Upper management _____ _____
Direct supervisor _____ _____
Peers _____ _____
Subordinates _____ _____
Support staff _____ _____
Customer/the public _____ _____
Vendors _____ _____
Self _____ _____

16. 360º Feedback or multi-source Feedback
Suggestions
4-10 raters
15 minutes to complete
Provide feedback within 6 weeks of evaluation

17. Agreement Among Raters Conway and Huffcutt (1997) Meta-Analysis
Agreement Between
Correlation
Two supervisors
.50
Two peers
.37
Two subordinates
.30
Supervisor and peer
.34
Supervisor and subordinate
.22
Supervisor and self
Peer and subordinate
Peer and self
.19

18. Step 5: Select the Best Method to Accomplish Goals
The next step is to select the performance criteria and the best appraisal methods.
Criteria are ways of describing employee success. Examples of criteria are attendance and quality of work.
Methods of measuring the criteria must also be created.

19. Three important decisions to be made
Appraisal dimensions
Need to be weighted?
How? Ranking? Rating? Or subjective?

20. Appraisal Dimensions: What will be the focus?
Trait-focused
Competency- focused
Task-focused
Goal-focused
Contextual Performance

21. Trait-focused Performance Dimensions
Concentrates on employee attributes
Honesty
Courtesy
Responsibility
Dependability
Cooperation

22. Competency -Focused Performance Dimensions
Concentrates on the employees’ KSAOs such as :
Report writing skills
Driving skills
Public speaking skills
Knowledge of the law
Decision-making skills
Physical ability skills

23. Task-focused Performance Dimensions
Crime prevention
Arrest procedures
Court testimony
Use of vehicle
Radio procedures
Following rules and regulations
NOTE: Organised according to similarity of tasks
A task-focused dimension includes several competencies.

24. Goal-focused Performance Dimensions (Results)
Prevent crimes from occurring
Finish shift without personal injury
Have arrests and citations stand up in court
Minimise citizens’ complaints
Ensure public safety

25. Contextual Performance
Contextual performance is the performance of an employee within the context of the organization.
Includes efforts by the employee to get along with peers and to do “more” than in the JD, thus promoting good prosocial organizational behaviours.
Gaining grounds

26. Need to be weighted?
Should one dimension considered more important than the others?
Depending on the organization ( and the trade it does). The impact of one dimension has to be weighted against the others within the context of the organization.
Differential weighting has its advantages, but many organizations weigh all performance dimensions equally; easier to compute and easier to explain to employees.

27. Performance Appraisal : How?
Employee Comparisons
Rank order
Paired comparison
Forced distribution
Objective measures
Quantity
Quality of work
Attendance
Safety
Subjective Ratings

28. Employee Comparison :Rank Order
Employees are rank by their performance for each dimension.
The rank are then averaged across each dimension to produce an overall rank

29. Rank Order Method: Example
DIMENSION A B C
Total
Amin 1
Aminah 2 3
2.33
Azizah
2.67
Alishah 4 5
4.33
Azmin
4.67
Easy to use when the number of employees is small

30. Employee Comparison: Paired Comparison
To choose the better of a given pair of employees.
Advantages and disadvantages

31. Employee Comparison: Forced Distribution
Predetermined percentage of employees are placed in five categories

32. Employee Comparison: Forced Distribution
Also called “rank and yank” method
Easier to use compared to the other two methods.
A favourite method to some CEO
Harsh, but seem to be able to increase productivity ( for the first few years of implementation)
Employees consider the least fair method
Assumption: normal distribution of employee performance.

33. Employee Comparison: Forced Distribution
Anthony
Bismi, Charlotte
Daud, Eva, Farid ,Goh
Hadi, Isaac
Jacob
10%
Terrible
20%
Below average
40%
Average
Good
Excellent

34. Objective Measures Quantity of work Quality of work Attendance Safety
Absenteeism
Tardiness
Tenure
Safety

35. Ratings Supervisors rate performance of employees in each dimension
Two most common methods are :
Graphic Rating Scale
Behavioural Checklist

36. Graphic Rating Scale Example
Job knowledge Poor Excellent
Patrol activity Poor Excellent
Decision making Poor Excellent
Use of weapons Poor Excellent

37. Graphic Rating Scales: Advantages and Disadvantages
Easy to construct and easy to use
Likely to cause rating errors such as leniency and halo effect.

38. Behaviour Checklist
Behavioural checklist contains a list of behaviors, expectations, or results of each dimension.
Focus is on the relevant behaviours.
Checklists are taken from the task statements from the Job Descriptions and converting them into behaviour performance statements.
Statements can be in the form of behaviours or in the form of results.

39. Behaviour Checklist : Challenges
Result-focused statements may be favoured because evaluation of employees is seen by their contribution to the organization.
There is the danger of contamination using result-focused statements

40. Step 6: Train raters
Training raters is very important to ensure sound evaluation system.
Trained raters reduce rating errors, increase accuracy and increase satisfaction of employees.
There is a lack of training of raters.

41. Step 7: Observe and document performance
Observe and document critical incidents as they occur; written in a log.
Critical incidents should be communicated to the employees as they occur.

42. Observe and document performance
Documentations are important:
Forces supervisors focus on behaviours rather than traits.
Help supervisors recall behaviours when evaluating performance.
Provide examples when reviewing performance ratings with employees.
Help defend organization against legal actions taken by employees who were terminated or denied.

43. Step 8: : Evaluate performance
Obtaining and reviewing Objective Data
sources of contamination considered
Reading critical-incident Logs
help reduce errors
Completing the Rating Form
Aware of common rating errors: distribution errors, halo errors, proximity errors, contrast errors.
Aware of other challenges: low reliability across raters, sampling problems, cognitive processing of observed behaviour.

44. Step 9: Communicate appraisal results to employees
Common practice: every six month
The “session” is usually done as quickly as possible because managers do not like it, and, not much benefit to them.
Certain techniques can help the session o be more effective, which includes preparation prior to the session and what to do during the session.

45. Step 10: Make personnel decisions
The main aim of performance appraisal results is to provide feedback to employees regarding their behaviour.
Results can also be used to make pay rise, promotions or terminating an employee.

46. Other types of rating scale
Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)
Forced-choice Rating Scales
Mixed standard scales
Behavioral Observation Scales

47. Which is the best method?

48. Main references:
Aamodt, M. G ( 2010). Industrial/Organizational Psychology. An Applied Approach.( 6th Ed) USA: Wadsworth
Riggio, R. E. ( 2009). Industrial and Organizational Psychology (5th ed). New Jersey: Pearson Education
Evaluating Employee Performance(2010). Cengage Learning