Effective Performance Appraisal Research Articles

Teacher appraisal and its outcomes in Singapore primary schools

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the attributes of the performance appraisal system used for primary school teachers in Singapore, and how those attributes affect satisfaction with the appraisal system, stress experienced with the appraisal system, attitudes towards performance bonus, job satisfaction and motivation, and perceived cooperativeness amongst teachers.Design/methodology/approachData were obtained from surveys of primary school teachers in Singapore (n=85). The researchers used factor analysis to identify factors of appraisal system attributes and factors of teacher attitudes and perceptions, and then employed step‐wise multiple regressions to relate appraisal system attributes to teacher attitudes and perceptions.FindingsThe findings indicate that fairness of the performance appraisal system and clarity of appraisal criteria are related to greater satisfaction with the appraisal system, more positive attitudes towards performance bonus, and higher job satisfaction and motivation. Using appraisal criteria that are controllable is associated with greater satisfaction with the appraisal system, less stress experienced with the appraisal system, and higher job satisfaction and motivation. Finally, teachers who report greater trust in their appraiser and more positive assessment of their appraiser's credibility also report more cooperativeness amongst teachers in their school.Originality/valueThe paper provides insights on how various attributes of the performance appraisal system in the Singapore educational context are related to important outcomes such as job satisfaction and motivation. The findings may help primary school administrators design and implement more effective performance appraisal systems.

Managing Human Resources

OVERVIEW:2007 is Research-Technology Management's 50th year of publication. To mark the occasion, each issue reprints one of RTM's six most frequently referenced articles. The articles were identified by N. Thongpapanl and Jonathan D. Linton in their 2004 study of technology innovation management journals, a citation-based study in which RTM ranked third out of 25 specialty journals in that field (see RTM, May–June 2004, pp. 5–6). The article reprinted here was originally published in 1988 and has been updated with its author's “reflections.” It surveys what had been learned about the management of human resources during the previous 50 years since the Industrial Research Institute's founding in 1938. The focus is on the effective utilization of technical professionals, which the author breaks into four “distinct, yet, interrelated components or subsystems”: an effective human resource planning, reward, performance appraisal, and career planning system. After discussing the major research findings and lessons for each element, the article concludes with a research agenda for the next 50 years.

Strategic human resource development in public libraries in Botswana

PurposeThe broad objective of this study was to present a model for strategic human resource management through an effective staff performance appraisal system in Botswana Public Libraries in order to enhance the provision of delivery of information services.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents and discusses the partial findings of the study, which were revealed in an attempt to provide a strategic human resource management model for public libraries in Botswana. Public libraries aid the public as a whole, and they often lack funds and human resources. It is because of these constraints that the study was embarked on by the author.FindingsFrom an empirical investigation the main critical qualities required to provide efficient public library services were revealed as: enthusiasm, positive attitude, innovative thinking, commitment. The other staff related and motivational issues were identified as: a sense of achievement, a feeling of self‐worth, job‐security, staff recognition, status, career development, good salary, effective communication, job satisfaction, delegation of authority, clear job description, performance feedback, conducive working environment. Some other strategic management issues were acclaimed as: organisational culture, transformational leadership, employee recognition and reward systems, performance measurement system, productivity improvement, and customer orientation.Originality/valueThis paper recommends a strategic human resource management model for the public libraries in Botswana, which may assist in enhancing the provision of library services to fulfil the aims of the Botswana National Library Service (BNLS) more efficiently and facilitate the strategic plan process of BNLS which is currently working on its strategic plan and human resource strategy.

Development of a performance appraisal training program for the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago

“Nobody w ants to get one. Nobody wants to give one.” The problem was that the supervisors and managers of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) did not know how to use the Institute's new performance management system and had not been trained on how to prepare and deliver effective performance appraisals. The problem further included the fact that RIC was required to improve its effectiveness and timeliness with performance appraisals in preparation for its 2002 Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) review and felt bound to be timely for its employees as sound management practice. The research question was: “What should be contained in a training program for effective performance appraisals that drives performance accountabilities in a mutually satisfying way for adults who can find themselves as either appraisees or appraisers?” Procedures to develop a performance appraisal training program included a review of the literature, selection of formative and summative committee members, and design and validation of criteria and contents of a performance appraisal training program. The results of the study included the creation of a two‐module performance appraisal training program that included a module on the new performance management system contents and the manager's role within that system, and a module on preparing, delivering and assessing effective performance appraisal experiences. The conclusions reached included that it was possible to design a performance appraisal training that incorporated adult learning principles including learner‐centered strategies that also reinforced ownership of timeliness. Face‐to‐face training experiences were augmented by online training materials, allowing for access by 20 RIC locations. RIC has approved recommendations for further evaluation of the effectiveness of the performance appraisal system. Recommendations to apply adult learning principles to internal adult learning venues have received broader acceptance within the wider management and employee groups.

Employee Performance Appraisal System Participation: A Technique That Works

Performance appraisal is one of the most complex and controversial human resource techniques. Participatory performance appraisal is an essential and proven attribute of an effective performance appraisal system. This article summarizes the conceptual foundation for participation including its intrinsic motivational value, the expansion of available information, and the opportunity to interject employee voice. The moderating role of goal setting and feedback in enhancing participation effectiveness is outlined. The article concludes with factors that attenuate the effectiveness of participation including lack of training, absence of rater accountability strategies, and organizational and supervisory resistance to honest subordinate feedback.

Appraising Account Executive Performance Appraisals: Current Practices and Managerial Implications

The management literature provides guidelines for effective performance appraisals. Building on these guidelines, this study analyzes the characteristics of appraisal forms used by a relatively small sample of advertising agencies in assessing their account executives (AEs). The findings indicate that many agencies focus more on the AE's contributions to internal operations than to maintaining productive relationships with clients. The results suggest implications for improving the effectiveness and fairness of AE performance appraisals.

Employee Performance Appraisal System Participation: A Technique That Works

A performance appraisal is one of the most complex, and controversial, human resource techniques. The participatory performance appraisal is an essential and proven attribute of an effective performance appraisal system. This article summarizes the conceptual foundation for participation including its intrinsic motivational value, the expansion of available information, and the opportunity to interject employee voice. The moderating role of goal setting and feedback in enhancing participation effectiveness is outlined. The article concludes with factors that attenuate the effectiveness of participation including lack of training, absence of rater accountability strategies, and organizational and supervisory resistance to honest subordinate feedback.

The Dynamics of Effective Performance Appraisal: An Integrated Model

This paper presents further exploration of the quest for accurate and effective performance appraisals. Attempts to design and implement more effective performance appraisal systems have led to som...

Towards the development of performance appraisal system for vcc senior and junior staff

The principal aim of this study was to evaluate the current VCC performance appraisal for the Junior and Senior Staff and to make recommendations for improvement or development of a new system for consideration by management. The study revealed that an effective performance appraisal system must, among other things, aim at: • Performance Improvement • Compensation Adjustments • Placement Decisions • Training and Development of Staff • Identification of Deficiencies in Staffing Process. Preparations to meet external Challenges It also revealed that management and staff use the feedback from the appraisal exercise in making important management and personal decisions including career planning Q/~d Human Resource Planning. The study further revealed that the VCC Junior and Senior Staff appraisal system document suffers from a number of problems and that there is the need to design a--l1e;V appraisal system for the assessment of VCC Junior and Senior Staff work performance. From the findings of the study, it is proposed for consideration by management, Peter Druker Management by Objectives (MBO) technique. Though this technique does not represent the ideal form of performance appraisal technique (Luthan I977), it is one of the techniques that come closest to the ideal. It represents a significant point of departure ji-om the rating scale and offers a great deal of potential for the future.

Designing effective performance appraisal systems

Reports that effective performance appraisal systems help to create a motivated and committed workforce. To be effective they require the support of top management to show their commitment and to translate organizational goals and objectives into personalized employee specific objectives. Explains a framework for the implementation of performance appraisal and in particular the need for appropriate training for supervisors, raters and employees, a system for the frequent review of performance, accurate record keeping, a clearly defined measurement system, and a multiple rater group to perform the appraisal.

How Construction Managers Would Like Their Performance to Be Evaluated

Communication of the expectations of the construction organization and those of the construction managers is a key management function for motivating and developing professional construction managers. This paper explains how the successful design and implementation of an effective performance appraisal system will improve construction managers' performance. It also explains the details of a study that was carried out in one of the largest contracting companies in the Middle East to determine and quantify the performance criteria by which construction managers would like their performance to be measured. One hundred ten construction managers participated in the study. They generated 52 ideas for performance measures. These were combined together to form 12 measures. For example, the first measure is the level of effectiveness, and this was given as 15% of the overall performance. The 12 measures were further analyzed and categorized into five areas that were considered by the project managers to be the most determining areas in which they would like their performance to be measured. For example, measurement of efficiency represented over 35% of the preferred performance measures.

Municipal Government Personnel Professionals and Performance Appraisal: Is There a Consensus on the Characteristics of an Effective Appraisal System?

Personnel manager knowledge of the characteristics of an effective performance appraisal system is potentially an important factor in appraisal system development. The results of a national sample of municipal personnel professionals indicate that personnelists tend to agree with the performance appraisal literature regarding the essential attributes of an effective appraisal system. A discriminant analysis was performed to identify the characteristics differentiating respondents on their degree of agreement with the appraisal literature. The results demonstrate that personnelists who are less experienced are more likely to support the literature, but the model explained only a small portion of the variance. The most interesting substantive finding is that rater participation in the development of the system is deemed more important than employee participation.

The Performance Appraisal Interview: A Multi-Purpose Communication Assignment

The performance appraisal has become a standard topic in business or management curriculum, most frequently covered in personnel, management, human resources, or organizational behavior classes. Students learn such things as types of employee appraisal systems, how to create appraisal instruments, and how performance appraisals fit into larger employment cycle. What these students seldom have an opportunity to acquire or to practice, however, are specific communication skills necessary to effectively implement systems they study. However knowledgeable our graduates may be in principles and theory of performance appraisal, their ability to effectively execute these systems, particularly under difficult circumstances, is often limited unless they have acquired accompanying competence in oral and written communication. Importantly, communication skills and attitudes most critical to effective performance appraisal are same skills and attitudes that are needed in a wide range of other on-the-job management communication situations. Students who develop communication competencies necessary for conducting challenging performance appraisals will be well-served as they train, coach, counsel, direct, and motivate employees in other daily work contexts. A brief examination of goals and methods of performance appraisal may be helpful in providing a context for following assignment, which is designed to help students choose and practice some of most essential management communication skills and strategies. Further information may be found in Dessler (1983), Napier and Latham (1986), Smith (1986), DeGreforio and Fisher (1988), add Mohrmann, Resnick-West, & Lawler (1989). PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS Performance appraisals have become a primary management tool for improving employee performance, setting total quality standards, and communicating organizational values. Although performance appraisal serves several functions, its primary purpose is to improve individual performance, most often through a. Clarifying job requirements and standards b. Providing feedback to employee regarding his or her progress toward meeting these standards c. Guiding future performance by formulating an action-plan and allocating rewards and opportunities. An effective appraisal, therefore, accomplishes a variety of specific tasks while maintaining a positive relationship between supervisor and employee. The difficulty of this task, from manager's viewpoint, is largely dependent upon type of appraisal interview required. In some cases, employee performance is satisfactory and manager's goal is to either help employee maintain his or her current level of performance (when no promotion is possible) or to assist in development of a realistic career path. The interview assignment as described below, however, pertains only to those situations where performance is unsatisfactory. The management task is to communicate performance problems to an employee who, for any number of reasons, may not be completely receptive to manager's efforts. In preparation for appraisal interview, managers assemble and review all relevant data, make decisions regarding various aspects of appraisal itself and prepare employee for up-coming meeting. Of wide range of appraisal methods, three most frequently used instruments are rating scales, critical incidents, or a combination of two called behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS). BARS anchor points of rating scale with fictional sample critical incidents - examples of what employee's performance looks like for each value of rating scale and for each dimension being evaluated. On a five-point scale covering typing accuracy, for instance, critical incident for 1 may be the employee submits work with approximately an error per page at least half of time. …

Issues and problems of performance appraisal systems for university general staff: a study in a U.S. university

Both benefits and problems appear to be associated with performance appraisal systems, but the research literature includes relatively few workplace‐based studies which explore the reasons for the difficulties surrounding it. This lack of work‐place information is particularly true of performance appraisal for university general staff. This paper aims to fill this gap, at least partly, through an investigation of the effectiveness of a performance appraisal system for general staff in an American university. Staff in the University of California Office of the President, the central administration of a very large multi‐campus American university, were surveyed for their views on five major areas that are thought to be influenced positively by an effective performance appraisal system. These areas are summarised under the headings: communication and feedback, work objectives, job duties, communication with supervisors, and effectiveness of communication, training and rewards. The survey also sought information about staff views on performance appraisal in general, and also about what special issues performance appraisal presents for supervisors. Results of the study supported many of the hypotheses of the research literature about how to install an effective appraisal system, including the need for continuing training, support from the top of the organisation, clear objectives for the system, and an appropriate match between the type of appraisal system and its uses. There were few differences in perceptions about these matters between staff and their supervisors. The type of work done in higher educational institutions, however, as well as aspects of those organisations’ cultures, gave rise to special problems for their performance appraisal systems, so that the system's benefits appeared limited in the eyes of many of its users. The problems included difficulties in coming to grips with the organisation's goals, and hence in setting performance standards, and enforcing the requirement that everyone in the organisation be appraised. The attempt to link the performance appraisal system with merit pay increases also appeared problematic given the vulnerable nature of higher education funding, the variability of the task environment and a collegial culture which extends to general staff as well as academics.

Performance Appraisal as an Aid in Personnel Decisions: Linkages between Techniques and Purposes in North Carolina Municipalities

This study surveys general factors essential to effective performance appraisal (related to the employment of performance standards and employee participation in their construction), examines specific types of appraisal systems (graphic rating scales, forced-choice, paired-comparison, behaviorally anchored rating scales, and appraisal-by-objectives), and explores system add-on options (critical incident, appraisal interview, self-appraisal, interim appraisals, and special management appraisals) that enhance the effectiveness of appraisal. These are examined vis-à-vis the purposes to which performance appraisals are put (training, reassignment, reinstatement, promotion, demotion, retention, dismissal, merit pay, and bonuses). General performance standards, specific appraisal types, or various productivity add-ons appear to be moderately linked (with Phi-statistics measured between .2 and .4) to their employment as aids in personnel decision making. Although we must note that these associations are not themselves causal evidence, these practices are indeed designed as aids for making personnel decisions. Their introduction into municipal performance appraisal is clearly tied to a willingness among those cities to employ those appraisals as aids in making substantive personnel decisions.

Faculty performance appraisal systems: procedures and criteria.

This study investigated the consensus among schools of nursing in (1) using the eight elements of effective performance appraisal identified in the literature and (2) identification of domains, dimensions, and subdimensions of faculty performance. Content analysis was done of actual policies, procedures, and forms from 86 schools with graduate programs. Performance appraisal systems were found to be in an early stage of development. There was substantive agreement on teaching, service, and research as domains, with 25% or fewer schools also using faculty development, professional practice, and/or administration. There was less consensus as to the attributes of domains. Specific dimensions and their assignment to domains, as well as recommendations to guide future development, are discussed.

Rating the Performance of Newsroom Professionals

Effective performance appraisal can help a newspaper become better and therefore enhance its position in a competitive marketplace. It can help employees improve and grow. A good performance appraisal system can be both a report card on the past and a blueprint for the future.

Effective Performance Appraisal

Effective Performance Appraisal

Training the Raters: A Key to Effective Performance Appraisal

Although appropriate rater behaviors are critical to the success of any performance appraisal system, raters frequently receive little or no training regarding how to carry out their role successfully. This article outlines the major elements which should be included in an effective rater training program. Suggested training approaches and the need for refresher training also are discussed.

Effective Performance Appraisal: Viewpoints from Managers

Although volumes of material have been written and published on performance appraisal, few articles have tried to ascertain the perspective of the practicing manager in problems that he or she faces in dealing with performance appraisal systems. The authors interviewed over 60 managers who administered performance appraisal in a large Fortune 500 service organization. They found that managers expressed four problems with existing schemes of performance appraisal. First, multiple uses of appraisal documentation caused validity problems in ratings of performance. Second, most ratings schemes were subjective and inflated, with few guidelines for objectivity. Third, objectives for effective performance were not clearly defined, and finally, information about performance appraisal was not always communicated clearly to employees.