Organizational Behavior and Leadership - Performance Evaluation - Essay Example

? ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR Assignment- 2 ……………………… College………………………………. …………………. Performance Evaluation Evaluating the performance of employees is one of the most important strategic tools for effectively managing the human resources in an organization since it helps management in taking significant human resource decisions related to training, development, transfer, promotion, termination etc. A good performance evaluation not only comprises of assessing the performance and efficiency of each employee, but also provides correct feedback and training to make them correct. Major three concerns from the given scenario In order to carry out a performance evaluation in an effective way, the evaluator must be expertise and qualified in doing the evaluation. One of the major concerns prevailing in the company is that there is no expert in conducting professional performance evaluation. The previous engineer was very expert in conducting the evaluation, but he has left the company due to clashing personalities. The plant manager, presuming that he or others in the company, may not be able to conduct the evaluation, is thinking to skip the annual performance review, and this seems to be another big concern in the company. What makes him think of skipping the review was that the previous engineer left the company claiming that there would be none to do annual performance evaluation. In the current evaluation form of the company, another serious concern is taking decision regarding rating the engineers. The engineer feels friendliness as superior and he therefore would give medium rating on that aspect. Moreover, giving rating on personal qualities and attitudes also will be quite difficult for the engineer. In performance evaluation, the management should evaluate an employee’s outcomes such as quantities he produced, scraps he generated etc. Management is also expected to evaluate the behaviour of employees especially when they face difficulty to evaluate and identify the contribution of each group member. The third criteria is trait whereby individual traits are to be identified and evaluated. Traits such as attitude works, confidence in completing the tasks, dependence, being busy in work, positive approach etc are therefore related to various work tasks and they are to be evaluated by the management. Advantages and disadvantages of including supervisors, peers and subordinates in the performance evaluation Out of various performance evaluation methods in place today, 360-degree feedback is getting wider popularity among organizations. 360-degree method of evaluation is a latest approach to evaluating the performance from all different customers of an employee. A customer of an employee can be any or all of the manager, supervisors, bosses, peers, friends, clients, subordinates etc. Though present engineers in the case study scenario were not experienced in performance evaluation, they are confident in conducting 360-degree evaluation and they even found that it will be an effective technique for analyzing and evaluating the performance of engineers in the company. The main aim of 360-degree evaluation method is to pool the feedback from all of the customers of an employee. His customers are top manager, other levels of managers, suppliers, subordinates, clients, peers and other department representatives. By adopting the 360-degree performance evaluation, the organization hoping to give everyone a sense of participation in reviewing and evaluation processes and this in turn helps the manager gain more accurate information about the performance of employees (Robbins and Judge, 2011, p. 567). While adopting this method, engineers in the company, for instance, may be able to gain opinions from various groups in relation to how is the work outcomes, attitudes, behaviour and traits of a particular employee. Many organizations that adopt 360-degree evaluation don’t spend sufficient time in training and educating the parties who are involved in the feedback process and therefore the result may not be as accurate as expected (Robbins and Judge, 2011, p. 567). The feedback can also often be influenced by personal bias and prejudice when various customers to an employee give feedback to the manager. Methods of performance evaluation: Comparing of various methods Written essays is a simplest method that a manager or supervisor asks employees or his concerned customers to write a narrative to show his strengths, weaknesses, past performance, suggestions, needs for improvements etc. This evaluation will be successful only if the evaluator is good in writing skill. Critical incident method focuses on the evaluator’s attention on the difference between doing a job task effectively and doing the same ineffectively. The evaluator will have a list of critical incidents providing set of examples to show employees’ desirable behaviors. Graphic rating scale is a method in which the evaluator uses different rating scales such as quality, quantity, depth of knowledge, cooperation, attendance, initiatives etc. While these three methods are compared and contrasted, it can be observed that Graphic rating method may be useful for analyzing the quality, behavioural and related factors whereas critical incident method is useful for analyzing the situations in which jobs are done effectively or ineffectively. Both writing essays and critical incident methods provide depth of knowledge, but graphical rating method doesn’t provide such depth of knowledge. Out of these three methods, graphic rating method seems to be easier since it provides quantitative analysis and comparisons between performance evaluators, but critical incident seems to be the strongest since it can help the evaluator recognize the effectiveness of the performance. Biases in performance evaluation Often, evaluators unconsciously inflate evaluations by exaggerating or overstating the facts or suggestions. This is termed as positive leniency. In contrast, the evaluators may understate the facts. This is negative leniency. Another error or bias that may occur in performance evaluation is halo error in which evaluator allows the assessment of one characteristic to unduly influence the assessment of others. The most common error or bias is similarity error in which the evaluator biases their evaluations by unconsciously favoring those people who possess qualities, attitudes and behaviour similar to the evaluators’ (Robbins and Judge, 2011, p. 569). Methods for improving the performance evaluation Robbins and Judge (2011, p. 570) suggested Multiple evaluators, selective evaluation, training the evaluators as useful tools for improving the performance evaluation. By using more than one methods of evaluation, more accurate information can be gathered. Evaluators should concentrate on those areas where they are more expert and this can give advantages of selective training. By training the evaluators, they are less likely to make errors and biases. Conclusion This research paper described performance evaluation in relation to the main three concerns from the scenario. This paper has detailed the conceptual framework of performance appraisal and compared and contrasted three methods of it, including 360-degree performance evaluation. . References Robbins, S.P and Judge, T.A, 2011, Organizational Behavior, Fourteenth Edition, Prentice Hall, Pearson Education, Inc. Read More