Staff Appraisal

Problems for Appraisers

If you are hiring able people and paying them a salary to do fine work, why do you need to throw them a sprat once a year as trainers of seals do with their charges.

• Prejudice:
  the appraiser may actually be prejudiced against the appraisee, or be anxious not to be prejudiced; either could distort the appraiser's judgement.
• Insufficient knowledge of the appraisee:
  appraisers often carry out appraisals because of their position in the hierarchy rather than because they have a good understanding of what the appraisee is doing.
• The 'halo effect':
  the general likeability (or the opposite) of an appraisee can influence the assessment of the work that the appraisee is doing.
• The problem of context:
  the difficulty of distinguishing the work of appraisees from the context in which they work, especially when there is an element of comparison with other appraisees.

Problems for appraiser and appraisee include:

• The paperwork:
  documentation soon gets very cumbersome as scheme designers try to be too clever and prescriptive. Their aim is to ensure consistent reporting by appraisers. They design complex forms which leave little for local discretion and flexibility.
• The formality:
  although appraisers may try to avoid stiff formality, both participants in the interview realise that the encounter has a lot handing on it. It can thus easily become relatively formal.
• Outcomes are ignored:
  follow-up action that the manager agrees to take (to help the appraisee - open doors etc.) often fails to take place. The manager even fails to follow-up on the action the appraisee has agreed to take
• Everyone is 'just above average':
  most appraisees are looking for reassurance that all is well. An easy way for appraisers to deal with this is by a statement or inference of the form, "Well, you are doing at least as well as most others in the department, and better than a good many!"

  How does the appraise deal with someone who has the opinion that they are average? Who wants to be average? What is it anyway?

• Appraising the wrong things
  sometimes behaviours other than actual work performance are evaluated. Timekeeping, looking busy and being pleasant - whilst relevant in some respects - are easier to see and thus easier to refer to in appraisal than the competencies and achievements in doing the job.

© Created by Chris Jarvis for the BOLA Project.