Appraisals are used by companies to identify employees, strengths and weaknesses. This process occurs annual or semi-annually. The appraisal provides employers with an assessment of how the employee does their job, interacts in a team environment, how they handle responsibilities, training and development opportunities, and areas of improvement. According to Mathis & Jackson (2008), “Organizations generally use performance appraisals in two potentially conflicting ways”. The first reason for using appraisals is to measure an employee’s performance rating to a compensation scale. The other reason for using appraisals is to identify opportunities for development.
Disadvantages
The issue with performance appraisals is that they are not always positive and can lead to confrontations between the employee and their manager. Employees can become agitated and think that the employer rated them poorly in an attempt to get rid of them. The other issue is that managers sometimes wait until the performance appraisal process to take corrective action. Managers should take corrective action on an employee when the incident occurs. Waiting until the appraisal process leads the employee to believe nothing wrong and that they are performing their tasks as expected. The manager should bring any incident or incidents that affect the employee’s performance to their action immediately. Waiting until the performance appraisal to bring up incidents that could have been corrected earlier had the employee known can lead to the employee becoming disgruntled, decreased moral, productivity, and loyalty. Lastly, performance appraisals are time consuming, stressful and are subject to error and biases.
Team and peer rating is another type of appraisal which can also be used to determine compensation increases and bonuses. There are several disadvantages to team/peer rating.
References: Benefits of performance appraisal. (n.d.). HR management. Retrieved July 21, 2012, from http://www.humanresources.hrvinet.com/benefits-of-performance-appraisal/ Mathis, R, & J. Jackson. (2008). Human Resource Management. (12th Edition). Mason, Ohio: South-Western College Pub.