Performance Appraisals

Question 1

On the surface, one may think that performance appraisals are only for determining whether an employee is doing a good job or not but in actuality, they can be used for a _______ of administrative and developmental purposes.

Answer 1

variety

The developmental aims of appraisals are to evaluate the employees performance, critique it, provide suggestions for improvement, discuss training and set new goals.

Question 2

The administrative goals of performance appraisals provide input for HR activities such as ____________ planning, making personnel decisions such as promotions or redundancies, and evaluating training programs.

Answer 2

compensation

Appraisals are commonly used to make compensation planning decisions, especially in performance-related pay situations.

Question 3

________________ opportunity legislation has meant that companies must maintain detailed records of their performance appraisals as a method of documenting their HRM decisions to defend themselves should an employee sue them.

Answer 3

Equal employment

This legislation has meant that employers need to keep records to justify the nondiscriminatory nature of their HR decisions.

Question 4

Performance appraisal programs can be formal and informal but their success depends on the purpose for it, attitude of the administrative staff and connection to ______________ goals.

Answer 4

organizational

The appraisals result in data which must be analyzed in context with the company’s business objectives so that overall performance of the staff can be improved.

Question 5

There are many reasons why formal appraisal programs sometimes fail and these include perceived bias of the rater, lack of __________ support and unclear performance standards.

Answer 5

management

Question 6

In order to develop an effective appraisal program, the initial discussions must be between the HRM and the ____ managers.

Answer 6

line

Input from the line managers is vital since they have first-hand experience with their employees, their abilities and performance.

Question 7

The first step in creating a good appraisal program is to establish the performance _________.

Answer 7

standards

The standards should be obtained from the job analysis of essential job functions.

Question 8

To determine the performance standards the four elements that must be considered are _________ relevance, criterion deficiency, criterion contamination and reliability of the standards over time.

Answer 8

strategic

Strategic relevance refers to the extent the performance standards are connected to the strategic goals of the company. For example, if a company states that all customer queries will be responded to within 24 hours; then it is reasonable to expect this to be a performance criterion in the appraisal of customer service representatives.

Question 9

Criterion _______ refers to making sure that the performance standards reflect all the employees responsibilities and criterion contamination ensures that factors beyond the control of the employee that can affect performance are not used in the appraisal.

Answer 9

deficiency

A factory has 200 workers. 100 work on new machines and the remainder work on the old ones. The workers on the new machines will be more productive because they have new equipment. This fact should not contaminate the performance standards when appraising the workers.

Question 10

In the landmark US Supreme Court case of Albermarle Paper Company v _____, the court held that job performance standards had to be clearly defined.

Answer 10

Moody

This is the important case that required employers to comply with focused and precise job performance standards to ensure that HRM decisions were fair.

Question 11

Manager or supervisor appraisal occurs when the review is conducted by the employees superior and that is then reviewed again by a more senior manager; whereas ___________ appraisal occurs when an employee carries out the appraisal on a superior.

Answer 11

subordinate

This is what occurs in a subordinate appraisal. It is normally conduced for developmental rather than administrative reasons. It is good that managers get feedback from their charges.

Question 12

____ appraisal refers to a review conducted by the employees manager with feedback obtained from peers but it is not commonly used because of concerns that peers rely on stereotypes, that they may be rating based on popularity or fears of retaliation if a low ranking is given.

Answer 12

Peer

There is a concern that the feedback given may be colored by stereotyping rather than being entirely unbiased.

Question 13

Team appraisal is based on _________ Management concepts that stress team achievements rather than individual performance.

Answer 13

Total Quality

Total Quality Management (TQM) sets performance standards derived from the customers needs. The employees performance is compared against the standard and then ideas for improvement suggested.

Question 14

________ appraisal is the performance appraisal of employees based on feedback from both external and internal customers with many managers setting customer service measures as a performance standard normally linked to incentive programs.

Answer 14

Customer

Customer Service Measures (CSM) are a performance standard and are normally linked to organizational targets

Question 15

The ________ appraisal is meant to provide employers with an overall picture of the employees performance.

Answer 15

360-degree

The term coined for this type of appraisal which combines feedback from as many sources as possible.

Question 16

The 360-degree appraisal approach is well adopted amongst the bigger firms but to make it successful feedback should remain _________, managers should personally discuss the evaluation in detail with every employee, checks should be conducted to ensure that cheating and biases do not occur.

Answer 16

anonymous

With the exception of the managers rating, the employee should not know how the evaluation team responded. This will ensure honesty.

Question 17

Without proper appraisal training, the rater may well rate all the employees as average, thereby making the error of _______ tendency.

Answer 17

central

These raters do not like to rate any employee too high or too low, so they aim for the average.

Question 18

The leniency or __________ error in appraising occurs when raters like to give very high or very low ratings.

Answer 18

strictness

This sort of error and occurs when managers think too highly (leniency error) or too little (strictness error) of the employees they are rating.

Question 19

In a performance appraisal, the _______ error occurs when the rater gives a higher rating to the employee than is deserved based on recent good performance, whereas the contrast error happens when the raters assessment is biased in a positive or negative manner due to a comparison with the previous employee appraised.

Answer 19

recency

This kind of mistake can be minimized if the appraiser has full details of the employees work record for the period in question.

Question 20

When the rater gives the employee an ________ rating because of a personal connection, then the similar-to-me error occurs.

Answer 20

inflated

The rater and employee may have certain things in common, such as race, religion, home town etc and these factors may affect the rating given by the rater.

Question 21

The three methods for conducting performance appraisals are the trait methods, behavior methods and _______ methods.

Answer 21

results

The trait methods are generally the most popular even though it can be considered subjective. They measure characteristics that are considered desirable for that job such as creativity, leadership etc.

Question 22

The four trait approaches for __________ performance are the graphic rating-scale method, mixed-standard scale method, forced-choice method and essay method.

Answer 22

appraising

With the essay method, the rater writes up a statement that describes the employees behavior to list his or her strong and weak points and suggest ideas for improvement.

Question 23

The graphic rating-scale method rates employees according to a scale of _______________ whereas the mixed-standard scale method employs a scale which compares employees performance and behavior.

Answer 23

characteristics

Each characteristic is graded according to a scale in which the rater compares the degree to which the employee possesses that characteristic in his or her job performance.

Question 24

When a rater has to select between _______ options to describe the employees job performance, then the trait system being used is the forced-choice method.

Answer 24

limited

The rater is forced to make a choice, usually from two statements; not knowing which choice describes the favorable or unfavorable job behavior.

Question 25

The __________ methods of performance appraisal are the critical incident method, behavioral checklist method, behavioral anchored rating scale (BARS) and behavior observation scales (BOS).

Answer 25

behavioral

The BARS approach uses a series of 5 to 10 vertical scales. Each one represents an important performance indicator as revealed from the job analysis.

Question 26

The behavior observations scales (BOS) analyzes the _________ of observed behavior in the employee whereas the behavioral checklist method requires the rater to check off the statements that are indicative of the employees performance.

Answer 26

frequency

Question 27

The _____ method simply measures the employees achievements and so can be unreliable in the long-term. As a consequence, the management by objectives method has been developed to overcome the drawbacks of the results method.

Answer 27

results

The Management by Objectives (MBO) method assesses the employees performance based on achievements measured against previously agreed goals established by the employee and manager together.

Question 28

The _____ methods are easy to develop and complete but it can be subjective and is not useful for feedback, whereas the behavioral methods are more detailed in enabling feedback but are expensive and time-consuming.

Answer 28

trait

Behavioral methods are detailed, so they take longer to create and complete–hence the higher cost.

Question 29

Management by ________ is a program that encompasses specific goals, participative set, for an explicit time period, with feedback on goal progress.

Answer 29

Objectives

Management by Objectives (MBO) emphasizes participatively set goals that are tangible, verifiable, and measurable. MBO focuses on converting overall organizational objectives into specific objectives for organizational units and individual members.

Question 30

In the late 1960s and early 1970s organizations became obsessed with management by __________.

Answer 30

objectives

Management by objectives (MBO), is based on Peter Druckers admonition that management can only be judged by results.

Question 31

There are three types of _________ interview: tell and sell, tell and listen and problem-solving interview.

Answer 31

appraisal

The problem-solving interview requires, listening, accepting and responding in such a way that employee growth and development are possible.

Question 32

The tell and sell interview requires the rater to use persuasion to change the employees behavior, whereas in the tell and listen interview the rater relates the positive and negative aspects of the employees performance and then the employee can _______.

Answer 32

respond

The tell and listen interview allows the employee to express their feelings about the appraisal and vent any feelings of frustration, in the hope that it will not affect their job performance.

Question 33

When __________ an employees performance, the three factors to consider are ability, motivation and environment.

Answer 33

diagnosing

Environmental factors that could affect job performance include management support, equipment and economic conditions.

Question 34

______ comparisons, narrative ratings, and critical incident appraisals are all used for employee comparisons. All have disadvantages.

Answer 34

Paired

Paired comparisons force supervisors to compare not only overall performance but various attributes, such as job skills, to those of other employees. Narrative ratings require supervisors to make a written descriptive assessment of each employees performance. Critical incident appraisals involve recording both good and poor performance that deviates from the norm.