Abstract
Performance evaluation is a technique that is used to assess the performance of an employee in his or her line of duties. Secondly, performance evaluation is used for managing and giving directions in professional expansion. Therefore, it is the procedure of getting, analyzing and documenting data regarding the relative significance of a worker to a company. This crucial procedure gives yearly responses to individuals on job efficiency and professional guidance. The process should be a balanced and just evaluation. This paper will examine a mid-sized manufacturing plant and review its performance evaluation process.
Performance Evaluation
The mid-sized manufacturing plant uses the 360-degree evaluation technique to evaluate its employees. The 360-degree assessment technique is one of the evaluation tools that are used by most the human resource personnel. This tool is utilized to assess the performance of an individual grounded on responses from every person the evaluator comes across such as colleagues, customers, supervisors, and stakeholders among others. Thus, 360-degree is a technique that gathers information from several sources within the worker’s surroundings (Stephen & Timothy, 2007, p.45). Nevertheless, there are some points of concern on the current evaluation form that is used by the manufacturing plant. First, when the plant manager is evaluating the rate of friendliness of the engineer, he does not consult other related individuals but rather makes a decision on his own and gives the engineer a medium rating. This is contrary to the manner in which the 360-degree evaluation method works. Secondly, the form tends to evaluate the neatness of the engineer. This area does not relate to or explain how effective an employee is in his or her performance. Thirdly, the current evaluation form requires the plant manager to evaluate the employees on attitude. This area can result in bias or errors in the final reports. This is because, it is difficult to evaluate one’s attitude and if one was to do so, it could be based on the relationship between the evaluator and the person being evaluated.
During performance evaluation process, some factors should be evaluated. Therefore, performance evaluation should assess a worker in terms of time management, effectiveness, quantity, and cost. The purpose of evaluating the employees in terms of quality or effectiveness is so that one can identify the training requirements of the workers and provide the workers with performance feedback. Evaluation on time management will assist the evaluator to understand the commitment of the employee to his duties. Finally, quality and cost help the organization to understand how it is operating; thus, improve on the manner of conducting its activities. Therefore, this will help the organization to develop greater synchronization and better output in the place of work.
Sets of evaluation criteria are an important stage within the performance evaluation process. Evaluation arises from the amalgamation of proof and criteria. Thus, it is essential to design precise tools for assessing criteria that are equivalent to those used in assessing proof or evidence. The formation of the sets of evaluation criteria relies on differentiating between reports and concepts.
Several advantages are achieved when one includes supervisors, peers, and subordinates in the evaluation process. First, there is a true and honest evaluation since the evaluator gathers information from different individuals before compiling the final report. Secondly, the chances of bias are reduced when compared to including one party in the process. Thirdly, it assists the worker to understand how other employees within the organization perceive him or her. Inclusion of the above personnel in the evaluation process aids in reducing the accusations of unfairness during performance evaluation.
On the other hand, including supervisors, peers, and subordinates in the performance evaluation has some disadvantages associated with it. First, there are difficulties in maintaining the employee’s information confidentiality since other personnel could discuss or disclose to each other what kind of information they gave. Secondly, the process is time-consuming since one has to get information from many individuals in a one-on-one manner. In addition, it is tiring since one has to analyze all the different information that is offered by different personnel.
Several methods are used in performance evaluation but the most common ones are management by objectives, behavioral observation scale and behaviorally anchored rating systems. Behaviorally anchored rating system is a technique that is utilized to elaborate on the productivity rating of an employee. This method is centered on particular characters or groups as determinants of efficient or inefficient performance. This method is a mixture of the “critical incident and rating scale” methods of assessing the performance of the workers within an organization. On the other hand, management by objectives is an evaluation technique where the evaluators or individuals being evaluated design objectives for a worker, occasionally assess the productivity, and give rewards to individuals based on the outcome. Thus, management by objectives centers its interest on the goals which must be achieved instead of the ways in which such goals are to be achieved. 360-degree evaluation method is commonly used by evaluators. It differs from the above two mentioned methods since the evaluator gathers information from individuals who work together with the person being evaluated. The workers obtain privacy, and unknown responses from individuals who are surrounding them (Stephen & Timothy, 2007, pp. 67-89).
Performance evaluation is a significant practice for an organization and every manager attempts to carry out the practice effectively and accurately. However, errors and bias tend to impact the accuracy of performance evaluations. Therefore, every manager should be aware of any possible factors which might impact the accuracy of his or her assessment because it will help in reducing them, thus, making the performance appraisal more accurate.
For example, there are the leniency errors. These are common errors, which mirror a tendency to increase the performance assessment of everybody. This means that managers attempt to evaluate all employees favorably to avoid arguments with workers who might be rated below average. Evaluators expect a worker who has received low rates to challenge the performance evaluation based on unjust evaluation and biased conclusions. Therefore, unless the assessment is free of false interpretation and is grounded on timely goals observations of the characters of the worker, a big accusation could be reported regarding corrupt and unfair evaluation (Stephen & Timothy, 2007, p.123).
Secondly, halo effects impact the accuracy of the performance evaluation process when the preliminary positive notion or concept of an employee leads the evaluator to see that anything else the employee does is positive. On the contrary, if the first impression of the employee was negative, everything else the employee does is perceived as negative or destructive, this is referred to as devil effect. This is a bias that happens since the preliminary thought or impressions of an individual have a great effect on all succeeding or following impressions (Stephen & Timothy, 2007, p. 134).
Attribution bias has a great impact on the accuracy of a performance of the employees. This bias happens when the assessments are affected by the past observed etiologies of performance like internal or intrinsic motivational factors. For instance, if in one project, two officers have been working together and have to be evaluated. Nevertheless, the evaluator believes that one of the officers failed to participate a lot in the success of the project, thus this leads to observed performance degree. On the other hand, the second officer did not have adequate skills but managed to participate maximally in the success of the project because of working hard. Most of the evaluators tend to rate the second officer higher than the first officer. This is an irrelevant attribution judgment (Robbins & Judges, 2006, p. 145).
The best techniques to use in the manufacturing plant in order to improve the performance evaluations are the interactive and developmental techniques. The interactive technique will involve both the plant manager and the employee interacting before the assessment completion to discuss what should be included in the final assessment file. In this way, the employees will feel recognized and part of the evaluation procedure, thus the employee will better comprehend what is expected of them. Secondly, the developmental technique will help the organization to examine its performance reviews quarterly. In addition, the progress of the workers will be recorded by the plant manager and the improvement of the worker is developed well by both the worker and plant manager. This is of great importance since the plant manager will not have to do reviews annually; hence, he will be in a position to rectify any gaps or attend to any needs of the employees promptly.
In addition, one-sided technique is used in performance evaluation where the executives fill the assessment form, go through it with the workers, the workers later sign the form and finally the form is stored in the worker’s file. This technique is appropriate since the employees are allowed to write down their opinions regarding the evaluation form. Moreover, the technique assists the management in helping the workers to understand their deficiency, hence, the need to improve on such areas.
Conclusion
Performance evaluation is a technique that is used to assess the performance of an employee in his or her line of duties. Moreover, it acts as a communication link between the workers and the management. Therefore, it offers an organization a chance to diagnosis challenges and problems affecting the organization, thereby, the organization is in a position to improve its productivity and development.
References
Stephen, S. & Timothy, A. (2007). Organizational Behavior. 12th Ed. New York: Macmillan.
Robbins, S., & Judge, T. (2006). Organizational Behavior. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Publishers.