Topic: Performance Appraisals
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (May, 2010)
Article: The roles of rater goals and ratee performance levels in the distortion of performance ratings.
Authors: X. M. Wang, K. F. E. Wong, J. Y. Y. Kwong
Reviewed By: Rachel Marsh
Performance appraisals
play a critical role in an employee’s work experience. But considering that appraisals are performed
by supervisors who might have ulterior motives, it’s worth exploring how these
motives affect performance appraisals?
The
motives addressed in the current article include harmony, fairness, and
motivating goals, all of which affect an employee’s performance ratings
irrespective of actual performance.
The harmony goal states that managers will inflate ratings of low
performers to prevent conflict in the workplace. The fairness goal states that performance ratings will be
lowered for high performers and raised for low performers when employees being
rated are in the same work group or at the same job grade. The motivating goal states that
managers will deflate ratings for high performers to motivate them to work
harder and managers will inflate ratings for low performers to motivate them to
work harder due to the disparity between actual performance and the performance
rating.
The
study suggests performance appraisals are not only impacted by actual
performance, but underlying motives of the rater or manager also impact the
appraisal. Raters asked to focus
on a specific rating goal disregarded the previous goal the rater had in
mind.
The
results of the article suggest that prior to the performance appraisal process
managers must receive training regarding possible ulterior motives in the
process. Companies must factor in
these underlying motives when considering performance appraisal results.
This is a perfect example of why performance appraisals should not be based on personality but behaviors and how a job is completed. The first step of a performance appraisal is to always try to make it objective as possible. Behavioral anchors can assist in this process.
I agree with you. Performance appraisals should depends on how the employee work and not on their character.
For more information on how to increase the structure of a job interview, see the comprehensive list presented in McCarthy et al.’s article.
They work (at least when they’re structured)! One potential problem with interviews is that irrelevant personal characteristics of interviewees (i.e., gender, race) may affect interview ratings; interviewees who are similar (race, gender) to interviewers will receive higher ratings in an interview than those who are dissimilar to the interviewers. This can ultimately lead to illegal practices and failing to hire the best applicants.
explored the existence of demographic similarity effects in highly structured interviews, which are known to be more valid than unstructured interviews. McCarthy et al. found that the demographic similarity effect was completely non-existent in highly structured interviews. In fact, their results suggest that there is no such thing as a demographic similarity effect when highly structured interviews are used.