LIMITATIONS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

abhishreshthaa

Abhijeet S
1. LACK OF CLARITY:
The objective of performance appraisal is to evaluate and develop employees. An organization should avoid using one appraisal system to achieve both objectives. The particular system of the appraisal system should clarify before it is designed and should be discussed with all managers and employees to gain their commitment. Any performance appraisal system, however good the design, is unlikely to succeed if the managers and employees are suspicious of its objectives. It is extremely difficult if not impossible to device a system that will be able to satisfy both performance and reward. It happens because employees are likely to resist negative feedback and tend to be defensive when weakness in current performance is identified. It is because of this type of overlap in purposes that the appraisal loses it’s practically and increases the conflict between the manager and the employees.
2. APPRAISAL ERRORS: These are as follows;
Halo, Recency, Contrast effects: the Halo effect occurs when a manager rates an employee high or low on all teams, because of one characteristic. For instance; if an employee has few absences, his manager might give him high rates in all other area of work. The recency effect happens when a rater gives greater weight to recent occurrence when appraising an employee’s performance. This sort of effect is an understandable rater’s error. It may not be easy for the manager to remember all events that happened like for instance; six months ago. Contrast error occurs when employees are rated relatively to other employees rather than to performance standards. For example; if everyone else in a group is doing mediocre job, an employee performing somewhat better may be rated as excellent because of the contrast effect.
Rater biases: this occurs when manager values distort the rating. Reasons for bias differ, for instance, religion, age, sex, appearance or other arbitrary classifications. If a manager strongly dislikes a certain ethnic group, this will be negatively reflected in appraisal if the appraisal scheme is not properly designed.
3. UNEQUAL PERFORMANCE STANDARDS
People differ from each other in the way they perceive things. What is good for some may be bad for others. Therefore managers have different judgments in appraising their employees. Managers’ attitudes to their employees differ, so different managers will appraise the same people quite differently which could make appraisal system subjective and manipulative.


4. CULTURAL FACTORS
Culture has profound impact on the appraisal system as it should be in consonance with the organizational culture. A system based on the employee participation and openness would be non-starter if the organizational culture is authoritarian and non-participative in its approach to other employee related policies. ‘Readymade’ performance review system imported from other organization rarely function satisfactorily. Their failure is partly due to culture differences. Thus culture is a vital factor to look after.
 
Limitations seems very important and it should be resolved as soon as possible, Agree? but we cannot neglect it's advantages:

Advantages of Performance Appraisal:

1)Increase competition
2)Boost confidence
3)Feeling of personalization
4) Sense of belonging
5)Zest to do more productive work.
 
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