What is the Purpose of having a Performance Analysis?

1) Strategic Purpose- to know the behaviors, characteristics of employees that are

necessary to carry out strategies of the company
2) Administrative purpose- Basis for rewards-system
3) Developmental Purpose- Develop employees who are effective at their Job

What is the criteria for the categories of performance analysis?

1) Strategic Congruence- must be in tune w/ org’s strategy, goals and culture

2) Validity- should only assess relevant aspects of Job performance
3) Reliability- Consistency of performance measure; must be free from random errors
4) Acceptability- must be accepted by the people who will use it
5) Specificity- must tell employees or respondents what is expected of them and how
can they meet these expectation

STEPS IN MAKING AN EVALUATION:

Step One: Determine the Reason for the Evaluation

1. Compensation
2. Promotion
3. Termination
4. Training Evaluation
5. Personnel Research

The first step in creating an effective employee evaluation is to first

determine why you want to evaluate your employees. These reasons
may be to determine grounds for changes in compensation or
position within the company, as a way to determine if the
employee in training is progressing properly, to determine if an
employee needs to be terminated, or as a function of personnel
research. Knowing the reason for the evaluation is important because
each purpose has a different set of objectives and tools. For example if
the evaluation is intended to be used to determine if an employee
deserves a raise in pay, then elements like job proficiency,
productivity, and customer satisfaction may all be used to determine
whether or not a raise is warranted. In this case objective and
measurable qualities and behaviors need to be measured, and
subjective qualities like the personability the employee should be
 omitted as they may not accurately describe a quality that impacts the
employee’s work.

Step Two: Determine Who Will Be Doing the

Evaluation
1. Supervisor
2. Subordinate employees
3. Self evaluation
4. Customers
5. Variety of evaluators

In this step you will need to decide who should conduct the evaluation.
This decision should be based on what kind of information you are
looking, and it may involve several different people. For example, if
you are evaluating an employee to determine if they deserve a raise or
promotion, then you will probably want their supervisor to evaluate
their overall performance. However, you also might want to include
their customers’ opinion about the employee’s performance, as well as
the opinions of any subordinate employees under the employee being
evaluated. It is also a good idea to have the employee to evaluate
himself or herself.

Step Three: Create an Evaluation Instrument

After you know both why you are evaluating the employee and who will be
doing the evaluation you can then design a tool that will measure the items
that you want to evaluate.

Performance Appraisal Methods:

1) Comparative Approach

Ranking-Graphic rating scales are one of the most common methods

of performance appraisal. Graphic rating scales require an evaluator to
indicate on a scale the degree to which an employee demonstrates a
particular trait, behavior, or performance result

Forced Distribution- Forced distribution is a form of comparative

evaluation in which an evaluator rates subordinates according to a
specified distribution.

2) Attribute approach--based on which individuals have certain attributes believed to be

desirable for the company’s success.
 Graphic Rating- Graphic rating scales are one of the most common
methods of performance appraisal. Graphic rating scales require an
evaluator to indicate on a scale the degree to which an employee
demonstrates a particular trait, behavior, or performance result.

Mixed Standard Scales - Mixed standard scales are a relatively

recent innovation in rating scales. They contain statements
representing good, average, and poor performance based on
behavioral examples obtained from knowledgeable persons, usually
supervisors.

3) Behavioral approach-attempts to define the behaviors an employee must exhibit to be

effective in the job.

Behavioral Checklist - A behavioral checklist is a rating form

containing statements describing both effective and ineffective job
behaviors. These behaviors relate to a number of behavioral
dimensions determined to be relevant to the job.

BARS - Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales -it is designed to

specifically define performance dimensions by developing behavioral anchors associate
with levels of performance.

Behavioral Observation System (BOS)-requires the managers to rate the frequency

with which the employee has exhibited each behavior during the rating period. Use many
behaviors that are necessary for effective or ineffective performance.

Step Four: Initiate the Evaluation

1. Inform the employee of how, when, and why they will be evaluated.
2. Evaluate the employee based on the standards explained in number 1.

After the evaluation tools and systems have been developed it is important to
let your employees know about these systems, when they will be evaluated,
and how they will be evaluated. They should know exactly what you are
looking for.

For example what improvements you expect a new employee to make

during their probationary period, or what skills you expect all of your
managers to have. By informing them of these things, you have a reasonable
right to expect to see these results when you next evaluate your employees.
If the employee fails to meet these expectations then you will have the legal
grounds to make a decision to either discipline or terminate an employee.

Once employees are aware of your evaluation systems the next step is to
conduct the actual evaluation. This process should not be seen as a quick
process that is done once every six months or once a year. Instead it should
be seen as an ongoing process. In order to get the most out of the evaluation
process, and to support the administrative decisions that you make regarding
the hiring, firing, promotion, and raises given to employees, continuous and
complete documentation of employee performance is needed. This includes
documenting both positive employee performance issues and examples and
negative employee performance issues and examples. Events should be
documented as they happen in order to avoid omissions and mistakes in
documenting the facts of the situation.

Employers should maintain a written log of critical events that occur

throughout the year. The purpose of all of this documentation is to keep the
supervisor focused on the range of behaviors and results that the employee
is exhibiting and/or achieving.

Step Five: Go Over the Results with the Employee

1. Prepare for the evaluation reveal

-The senior partners should know how much time the evaluation
process will take.

-Senior partners should give time to the associates for the

preparation of the revealing of the evaluation

2. Ask the employee to evaluate him or herself.

3. Reveal your evaluation results.
4. Discuss the results- The senior partners should discuss with the
candidate associates the results of the evaluation through this
process

A) The evaluators will start by reviewing how the evaluation process

was conducted, what tools were used, and who did the evaluating.

B) They must go over the results of the employee’s self-evaluation.

C) They must present their findings using the notes that you made
during the preparation step.

D) After all of the information has been presented they should

encourage a discussion about the findings. They should allow the
employees to explain or clarify concern or performance problems,
or to identify issues that you were unaware of.

E) Finally they have to give the employees a list of things that you
want to see improvement on by the next evaluation.
NOTE: communications of this kind needs to be in writing and they
need to be filed in the employee’s file after the employee signs it.
The signature should be below a statement that details that the
employee has received a copy of the requested improvements that
they have read and understood that they need to make the listed
improvements in their performance by the next evaluation.