Improving Performance Appraisal by Using Multiple Appraisers

Abstract

Improvement in performance appraisal systems are necessary because current methods are neither accurate nor fair. Recent attempts to improve performance appraisals by training raters has been shown to have the opposite effect‐actually decreasing the accuracy of the performance measures. Multiple rater performance appraisal systems (MRPAS) provide an opportunity to increase appraisal accuracy by combining judgements of individual raters. However, before MRPAS are used, numerous objections must be overcome including system acceptance, finding raters, system design, desire to participate, and the potential use of too much management time. The Objective Judgement Quotient (OJQ) performance appraisal process is used as a demonstration method that has developed solutions to each of these objections. When MRPAS are used effectively, the fairness and usefulness of multiple rater systems compared to single rater systems are so clearly superior that users of MRPAS are likely to adopt the view that single rater systems are obsolete.