Performance appraisals are strategically important for firms if used appropriately.
Following are several aspects that can be used to measure the strategic advantages of PA:
Monitoring: Performance appraisals help the organization to monitor the performance of individuals. As a result of this, it becomes possible for the organization to measure the contribution made by the particular individual during a specific time period to the organization.
Organizational goal achievement: Performance appraisals also provide assistance to the organizations to measure whether their strategic goals have been met or not in time (Salvendy, 2001). So, it can be said that performance appraisal is useful in organizational assessment.
Contribute in Employee Development: Performance appraisals are advantageous, as they contribute in the overall development of employees. It is so, as with performance appraisals, employees can identify whether they are lacking and need improvement to match skills.
Feedback: Performance appraisals are also strategically important, as they provide feedback to employees about their performance. As a result of this, both managers and employees can assess the required set of skills they needed to improve in future (Deb, 2006). This process helps the organization further to achieve goals by aligning the performance of employees with its strategic goals.
Performance Management: Performance appraisals are also good in managing the performance of employees. It is so, as though measuring the performance of employees, positive and negative areas associated performance of employees is identified. With the help of these areas, managers coach their employees to take necessary steps for performance management. If performance is managed properly, it automatically leads to the achievement of strategic goals. Hence our human resource management assignment help experts said that, in these ways, performance appraisals play a strategically advantageous role.
Potential Forms of Bias There are various potential forms of bias within the performance appraisal system.
These can be discussed as follow by assignment help tutors:
Central Tendency: In this appraisal system, managers select middle ratings to rate the performance of employees in the given scale. It is used to avoid any problem raised due to extreme sides of scale that are low and high (Sims, 2002). So, this form of system may result into bias situation for employees and as a result of this, managers also miss the chances of correcting the performance of employees.
Harshness Bias: New managers tend to give a harsh or low rating to employees to develop the image, which sometimes results into bias situation. Similarly, old managers give a high rating to employees, which is also a source of bias, if not explained properly.
Proximity Bias: In this system, managers tend to assign similar scores to items that are located nearest to each other on a given appraisal scale. As a result of this, managers tend to give more score to similar items that do not deserve the score, which result in misleading appraisals.
Prejudice: In this appraisal system, thinking or judgment of managers regarding a particular individual on the basis of their group or race decide the appraisal of employees. Like, if the manager thinks that particular group of people is poor in speaking the English language, they are appraised on the basis of this prejudice. So, this type of prejudice may lead to bias.
Hello Effect: Under this appraisal system, managers tend to judge the whole performance of employees on the basis of their one positive or negative aspect. This type of appraisal system may further result into bias situation for the employees and managers (Sims, 2002).
Unclear Standards: Use of degrees and traits in rating scales like graphic rating scale can be interpreted. In this kind of appraisal system, performance can be termed as good, fair and excellent. So, the descriptive form of appraisal is absent in this system, which may result in bias among the employees regarding their performance.
Role of Performance Appraisals Performance appraisals can contribute in strategic objective achievement in following ways:
Improving employee performance: Employee performance is central to strategic objective achievement. So, by improving the performance of workforce, performance appraisals can contribute in objective achievement at a strategic level in the organization.
Providing Feedback: By providing feedback to employees about how well they are doing in the organization on the basis of strategic objectives, the appraisal can help in accomplishing the goals. For example, by showing the gap exists between current performance and expected performance of employees, appraisal system can help in achieving the strategic objectives.
Managing performance: Main goal of any performance appraisal system is to manage the performance of employees by rating their performance positively or negatively. Similarly, performance management is also important for attaining strategic objectives. So, in this way, appraisal system can help in realizing the set goals in time (Landy & Conte, 2009).
Motivating and counseling: Motivation and counseling play a great role in improving the overall performance of employees. So, performance appraisals, if applied properly in the organization can motivate the employees to improve further without any bias or resistance. Similarly, during and after appraisals, employees are also counseled regarding their expected performance. It is evident that employee performance plays a vital role in strategic objective achievement. So, performance appraisal systems can contribute by developing employee motivation and counseling them positively in the right direction.
References: Deb, T. (2006). Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. Landy, F.J. & Conte, J.M. (2009). Work in the 21st Century: An Introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology. (3rd ed). California, USA: John Wiley & Sons. Salvendy, G. (2001). Handbook of Industrial Engineering: Technology and Operations Management. (3rd ed). Wiley-IEEE. Sims, R.R. (2002). Managing Organizational Behavior. USA: Greenwood Publishing Group.
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