USE FIELDWORK/STUDENT EXPERIENCES TO CRITICALLY ASSES THE VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
Performance Evaluation
performance evaluation has several synonyms used by various businesses: Performance evaluation, performance audit, performance review etc. In essence, it can be said that performance evaluation is an attempt to evaluate the performance of employees of a company and use the assessment as a basis for judging their performance the background of his entire work situation. Performance reviews gauge the merit, performance on the job and potential for promotion, of workers. By doing such appraisals, a business can identify the areas needing improvement and also the workers who are excelling and the needed standards for the ones lagging behind. There are several goals that those conducting performance evaluations wish to achieve and purposes that they must fulfill. They include:
1. Receiving feedback from employees to improve business
2. Re-instate the duties the employees are expected to complete, along with job expectations
3. Decide increments in salary and bonuses
4. Decide employee dismissal, promotion, probation or contract renewal (if any)
The Essay on Citibank: Performance Evaluation 2
... prowess seems to unduly influence the other evaluation dimensions. Imons, R. Citibank: Performance Evaluation. 1997. Harvard Business School ... service quality and knowledgeable employees who could satisfy their financial needs and his performance exceeded expectations every single ... 3rd quarter). Performance evaluation should not be a static document- it should be a reference for the employee and ...
5. Training and staff development
6. Data for research to further improve worker’s motivation, performance, work experience etc.
Process
To ensure proper of time and resources, businesses follow a certain process. Each business is unique, and the person in charge of such appraisals, must decide the best process for their decision. Below, a general process is shown:
1. The person in charge (say, the manager) must design a legally valid performance review process.
2. A form can be created, for ease of assessment. Standard questions and grading are printed here.
3. A meeting is held to brief employers and employees (usually, within 6 months of the beginning of a new financial year)
4. The manager must, once all the paperwork and planning is completed, initiate the performance review process and upcoming meetings.
5. 5. He/she should keep a track of updates from employees/employers
6. Documentation must be made for reference
7. Documentation must be compiled to evaluate, and then make necessary adjustments to the appraisals initial plan.
8. The manager must update and finalize the performance appraisal form.
There are two widely known systems, upon which the appraisals can be designed:
First, there is the ‘Person-based system’. This system assesses an employee according to personality traits, characteristics and aptitude. These include sensitivity, loyalty, reliability, punctuality, honesty and inventiveness.
Second, there is the ‘Performance-based system’. This is a more relevant system the measures performance in relation to established job-related behaviors.
Format
As mentioned above, each company is liable to creating their own performance appraisals and each is unique. Most appraisals are tailored to suit a company’s own needs. For instance, schools have online and paper appraisals. Or, a business employing salesmen may wish to have appraisals that include an interview to assess interpersonal skills. Even though the appraisal depends heavily on the manager’s wish, there are several types of appraisals that are used as a base format, and cover various needs. They are – essay evaluation form, forced choice form, weighted checklist form, rating scale form, self-appraisal form, 360 degree performance appraisal etc. The following is an appraisal:
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A natural person is a living human being. This definition is meant to set a natural person apart form a legal person which is a group of people acting in a unified, often commercial enterprise but are considered by law to be acting as a single virtual individual. Companies, partnerships and similar entities are considered legal persons. Natural person start his or her life as unborn baby. Person, ...
Drawbacks of Performance Evaluation
Richard A. Albright Jr., MBA and BSBA holder from Duke University, with more than 20 years of experience in human resource management, states that the person in charge of appraisals needs to be aware of several aspects that influence the outcome:
Generalizing
This is also known as the ‘halo effect’, is the tendency to rate someone high or low in all categories, based on their performance in other areas. When such generalizing occurs, the results are inaccurate and do not show a valid overview of their entire performance.
Different Standards of Evaluation
Evaluation terms such as fair, good, excellent, etc. are commonly used in performance appraisals. The meaning of such words varies from person to person. The meaning of ‘excellent’ to one worker may not be on the same level as another. Hence, it is not recommended to use such appraisals, as they are unspecific and too generalized. Managers should be aware of these variations.
Current and Lenient Bias
Current bias is the tendency to assess people based on their most recent performance and to ignore previous behavior. Leniency bias occurs when the employee gets rated higher than warranted. Personal relationships and personal bias are questioned, if a worker is given more preference than he/she deserves.
Opportunity Bias
Opportunity bias occurs when the manager ignores the presence of factors that are beyond the control of the employee and may be affecting their performance. These factors may be facilitating or harming their performance. Managers should perhaps do a background check or incorporate a ‘personal details’ section into the appraisal form so as to allow the worker to define such biases.
False Attribution Errors
There is often a tendency during appraisals to attribute success or failure to individual effort and ability. Reality is that performance is a function of both the individual and the system he or she works in.
The Essay on The Traditional Performance Appraisal
... performance appraisal, as primarily controlled by the supervisor, seems one-sided and the employee can hardly influence the outcome of evaluation. ... manner, managers, through rewards and promotion, uses performance appraisal to ... performance appraisal involves the human resource professional, supervisor, employee, co-workers, ... validity of the performance quantification. These reliability and validity- ...
More drawbacks include:
Measurement: Similar to the ‘evaluation’ problem, it is difficult to evaluate a person’s performance entirely. Quantitative work is tangible and can be documented, but how does a manager confirm the qualitative aspect of a person’s work?
Time consumption: Clearly, creating and conducting performance appraisals is quite a daunting task. The entire process is time consuming and needs dedicated managers and helpers to focus, create, generate ideas, and execute these ideas. Failure to do so will result in time loss, misallocation of resources and also, a lag in evaluating the workers on the business.
Drawbacks for the employees: Employees, most of the time, have no control over the process. Feedback is rarely taken into account, and employees are subjected to these appraisals without their feedback being heard. Review sheets are, at times, completed before the actual discussion takes place, proving to be highly detrimental to the overall employee’s evaluation. Also, the self-evaluation that is written by the employee is often by those higher up in the hierarchy.
Drawbacks for the managers: Managers have several tasks and are appointed to complete each of them. Making and conducting a performance appraisal can be a pre-determined task or a newly assigned one. Managers often show disregard if they are assigned this task later, as it is time consuming and they have other duties to fulfill. Managers may be ignorant or lazy, as forms are complicated and they might lack proper skill to complete such an intricate task.
Benefits of Performance Appraisals
For the appraisee, he/she has a better understanding of his/role in the organization and what expectations they must meet. He/she understands what needs to be done to meet those expectations. The person being appraised can define as pinpoint his/her weaknesses and strengths and enhance what is needed, for higher productivity in the future. If the appraisal goes positively, the appraisee is motivated and feels a higher self-esteem. Appraisals act as a platform to discuss work-related problems and seek guidance and training. Also, appraisals act as a medium between workers and supervisors; this improves working relationships. For the appraiser, they can identify the finest performers from those who are performing poorly. It gives them an opportunity to prime workers for undertaking higher responsibilities. The appraisal may be a platform to improve two-way communication, generation of ideas for enhancements to the business and help workers with career plans.
The Essay on Performance Appraisal Employee Expectations Job
The most important purpose or goal of the appraisal is to improve performance and hence productivity in the future. Performance appraisals allow employees to see where they are at and managers can get valuable information from employees to help them make employee's jobs more productive. Performance appraisals sound great in theory but the odd thing is that they often don't get done, and many ...
Lastly, the organization establishes a few benefits of its own from performance appraisals. It observes improved performance throughout the organization, creation of a culture which instills a sense of ‘work-culture’ and unity amongst workers. Also, appraisals show that a business values its workers, and it also, more importantly, shows the public that a continuous path of improvement is being taken.
Reliability and Validity
When it comes to judging the reliability and validity of performance evaluation, all of the above must be considered. Once again, each case is unique, and one organization’s results may differ from another. Managers may comprehend these results differently. The validity of performance evaluation relies more on the ’process’ of how it is conducted. With mistakes, poor conduct, and misinterpretation – validity is bound to fall. For instance, although the adoption of a ‘person-based system’ is easier and cheaper, it is not too strong with its validity. There is no of personality that can or is to a person’s work performance. Hence, validity falls. Performance appraisals have a risk of measurement which deters validity. The risk of quantity vs. quality comes into play, as well as the chance of becoming a paper-based exercise that does not challenge the ever-evolving business environment. Another key element is how frequent the company decides to evaluate its workers. Validity falls if the evaluations are done sporadically. Then, results are tougher to compare; too much time has passed between evaluations. Validity will be better is evaluations take place annually, or every 6 months to boost workers performances.
Moving on to reliability, it can be said that reliability depends more on process, methodology and quantity, instead of the time factor seen in validity. Some factors (according to the James Madison University’s business faculty) affecting reliability would be:
• Halo Effect – all dimensions of performance are rated the same as a single dimension that happened to impress the supervisor either favorably or unfavorably.
The Essay on Validity and Reliability
The Monte Carlo simulation is used as a method that is used in projects to estimate the risk and uncertainty attached. In construction projects, engineers need to measure the time and the cost involved. These measurements are based on prior experience of the project manager. The time and the value of the project are estimated on the basis of certain assumptions. Monte Carlo simulation works in a ...
• Overly Critical – when a supervisor sets unrealistically high standards, employees may conclude they will never measure up and stop trying.
• Overly Lenient – the result of being overly lenient is the same as being overly critical. If anything goes, why try should the appraiser try harder?
• Middle of the Road – some supervisors rate all employees within a limited range. Not everyone performs at the same level. Review forms should reflect differences in performance.
Evaluations like this are confusing and disliked. They prevent the open communication a review should foster.
* Recent Performance Error – it is easiest to recall most recent performance. What the review should measure, however, is behavior over the entire span of the review period. Others include ignorance of diversity and religious views that might affect performance. Moreover, reliability is also affected is instrumental problems occur such as ignorance of diversity or religion. Some jobs require unequal weighting instead of assigning equal weighting to factors that may not be relevant in some jobs. For example, a salesperson should have a higher rating on interpersonal skills than a cashier. For reliability to be stronger, annual reports are crucial as well.
In conclusion, reliability and validity are only two dynamics that a performance evaluation depicts. In reality, such appraisals are vital to keeping a healthy workforce, who a /re the driving force behind any business. Even though they have faults/errors, require resources and are time consuming, performance appraisals give the company a complete overview of the employees. For the public, a company implementing such reviews would appear more reliable and valid than a company that does not do any evaluation as such. Thus, reliability and validity of performance appraisals should be taken into account, but they do not show the overall condition of the business.
Application: Using fieldwork and student experience for assessment
Example 1
The university of Hong Kong is one of Asia’s, and the world’s leading universities. Performance appraisal is of course done to evaluate the performance of both the staff and courses. The following is a snapshot of the evaluation done by students at the end of an academic year. This evaluation involves verbal rating (Strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree and strongly agree) to evaluate the student’s university life, hall life, satisfaction from several courses, assessment of the faculty etc.
The Term Paper on Points of Concern in the Company’s Evaluation Form
The evaluation form currently being used by the company has many points of concern. First, it takes a look at the personal characteristics of the employee such as friendliness and attitude towards work. These criteria must be taken into account, however, results / accomplishments of the employee must be considered. It must be noted that assessing characteristics of the person in relation to the ...
This appraisal required a student to check the degrees of disagreement or agreement according to his/her own experience in HKU. Advantages: This form is provided online, making it fast and easily accessible if the internet is provided. Computers can quickly save and create copies of student’s answers. Also, the system used is fairly clear, and students have 5 different degrees to choose from Disadvantages: The options provided may not be sufficient enough for some students; their answer may be confined to these 5 options, and there are no other ways to provide feedback. Also, if internet access is limited, it will be difficult to fill out the form. One final point is, students nowadays are bombarded with online surveys and forms. Thus, they may feel ignorant, or disregard such mass questionnaires from HKU. According to the ‘Human Resources of HKU’ (“Performance Reviews”, 2011), “All full-time (and fractional) nonacademic staff (including research support staff) on either a substantive, fixed-term or temporary contract, are required to complete Performance Review and Staff Development annually.”
Example 2:
McDonald’s is one of the largest fast food chains, with outlets all over the world and is one of the best known names in the food industry. According to their ‘Worldwide Corporate responsibility Online Report’ (2009): “Since first establishing key performance indicators in 2006, we have continued to refine our approach to gathering and evaluating quantitative measures of our performance. As part of this system to further ensure the accuracy of the performance measurement process more efficient for McDonald’s personnel. In addition, we continue to evaluate options for additional and/or alternative key performance indicators that contribute to our continuous improvement goals and meet the transparency expectations of our stakeholders.” The following is a statistical report of their employee training and development.
From this appraisal, we can clearly see the employee’s job satisfaction, ease of communication with managers, trained management, equality (according to gender) etc. As mentioned above, these are factors that show strong validity and reliability for the reports. McDonald’s succeeds to prove a certain standard of reliability as they appoint trained managers, establish two-way communication and give women an equal chance in the hierarchy.
Of course, in any public release, McDonald’s is bound to emphasize its efforts to improve performance by workers. The following statement might reassure the reader: THE FACE OF MCDONALD’S—EMPLOYEES:
McDonald’s and our franchisees collectively employ more than 1.6 million people around the world. Approximately 400,000 are Company employees, about 97% of whom work in company-operated restaurants. McDonald’s is to providing respectful work environment and development opportunities for all employees, regardless of where and how they are contributing to the success of our System. For many McDonald’s restaurant employees, McDonald’s is their first job. But our goal is to make sure as many as possible turn a job at McDonald’s into a career at McDonald’s”. However, in reality, the scene is hardly as opportune. In an open review of McDonald’s, workers say – “Too much work and not enough pay or opportunity for advancement. Other management not so eager to help you learn all you can so that you can advance career wise” (past employee, McDonald’s, Los Angeles, California, 2011).
Employees complain about pay, work hours, work ethics as well as treatment in the work area. It seems that the “McJob” is not so ideal after all!
Example 3:
For my final example, I decided to analyze a well-known but recently criticized organization called Invisible Children. Invisible Children was founded in 2004, and is a non-profit organization that wishes to bring awareness to the activities of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Central Africa, and its leader, Joseph Kony. With its headquarters in San Diego, Invisible Children employs 43 full time staff who coordinates with hundreds of other volunteers. When it comes to a voluntary charity program, performance evaluation takes a slightly different course of action. The permanent staff is evaluated only, and most of the overall evaluations of the company must be based on the output that is logged.
For instance, Invisible Children must keep track of its goals and how much is achieved. This is only measured by the direct output of their worker’s, and volunteer’s output. Hence, it can be said that voluntary organizations have a different outlook when it comes to performance appraisals. It is vital for them to keep workers motivated, and volunteers as well, to create awareness and reach their goals. (For instance, Invisible Children created the video “KONY 2012” to raise awareness. However, the video generated mass speculation and angry outcries from social activists and internet bloggers. )
Why did this speculation occur?
Angered opinions were raised when America’s Charity Navigator revealed certain discrepancies in the financial, accountability and transparency reports of the organization. Invisible Children does not provide the public with their performance evaluation results, and they received 2 stars out of 5, in the accountability and transparency rating. This may be due to disloyal workers or dubious account details. In this matter, Invisible Children should release statements showing their performance appraisals to show the public that they maintain high standers of their workers, and organization ethics. As a volunteer program, they must assure the public of their reliability. If not, they will lose public trust. To improve validity, Invisible Children should evaluate workers every month or so. And for reliability, the managers should evaluate the outcome of permanent workers, and volunteers separately.
Conclusion
With today’s ease of accessibility to information (online, print, via the media etc.), businesses must maintain the highest of performance possible, in order to clients and the. With properly conducted performance appraisals, come more accurate validity and reliability statistics. Performance evaluations are vital to an organizations commitment to improvement and employee overviews. Once they are established, an organization can clearly identify problem areas and resolve them. With ever-growing competition, it is imperative to uphold the best validity and reliability rankings, which can be achieved via the most suitable and justly conducted performance evaluations.
ReferencesAlbright, R. A. (2009, December 28).
Purpose of the Performance Appraisal. Retrieved from Navigator Invisible Children. Retrieved 2011, from http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=12429Department of Human Resource Management (2008).
Performance Planning and Evaluation. Virginia.gov, Retrieved from , J. Performance Appraisal. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.16&thid=1359a37b31b97825&mt=application/vnd.ms-powerpoint&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui%3D2%26ik%3D53c40ae88b%26view%3Datt%26th%3D1359a37b31b97825%26attid%3D0.16%26disp%3Dsafe%26realattid%3De483537b76bee37a_0.16%26zw&sig=AHIEtbQT489KuUgB1wpov9aiQSEqrkg31AMcDonald’s Employment Review. (2011).
Retrieved from Appraisal Examples. (2009).
Retrieved from Reviews. (2011).
Human Resources of HKU. Worldwide corporate responsibility online report: The values we bring to the table. (2009).
McDonald’s Corporation. Retrieved from |
