Page 162 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

success and quality factors for performance appraisal systems 145
a year, which is also an appropriate evaluation period. The schedule for the appraisal
should be set and checked by the personnel department. Especially when goals are
defined, superior and employee have to talk about the achievement of milestones before
the whole evaluation period has passed. A quarterly evaluation, which few companies
want to establish, is often difficult to implement because superiors often lack the time
to accomplish the appraisals. Thus, a quarterly appraisal can only be recommended if a
superior has a small number of employees to appraise and if the performance appraisal
process is not too time-consuming.

EASY TO HANDLE AND SPECIFIC
The performance appraisal system is more likely to be applied if it is easy to handle. This
means that it should not be complicated to fill in the rating form. If the superiors have
to read ten pages of a manual before they are able to make the evaluation, the appraisal
system will have less chance to be used. Moreover, as stated above, the evaluation process
should not be too time-consuming. An appraisal system with two sheets of paper to be
filled in is better than one with five sheets.
The criteria of the appraisal system have to be as specific as possible. If many of the
criteria are not appropriate for the employees, the use of the system is questionable.
For this reason it is important that the appraisal system is developed specifically for the
demands and tasks of the company. It has to be fitting for most job descriptions. A good
idea is to have some modules for specific jobs. For example, for superiors there can be a
module which covers their typical demands such as leadership or delegation and is not
applicable to the appraisal of other employees.

CAREFUL IMPLEMENTATION WITH TRAINING TO PREPARE THE SUPERIORS

Training is an important tool for establishing a performance appraisal system. Within the
training the appraisal system and the appraisal criteria have to be explained. Moreover,
superiors have to be prepared to give feedback. The ability of the superiors to give
feedback is a success factor.
The reluctance or lack of skill to give feedback is a serious problem. This is especially
true for negative feedback cases because superiors often avoid giving negative feedback.
Some of the reasons for this attitude are the fear of possible conflicts, deterioration of
the relationship between the superior and the employee, and the lack of confidence in
the validity of the evaluation results.
Still, employees wish to receive specific and thereby possibly negative feedback as
frequently as possible. Research shows that the assessments as to what is really important
for a specific and frequent feedback differ hugely between the appraisers and the per-
sons to be appraised. Leading personnel judge the width and the quality of their feedback
as adequate, whereas the employees’ assessment shows apparent weak points (Taylor,
Fisher, & Ilgen, 1984). While informal day-to-day feedback gives the employee infor-
mation about the quality of specific task fulfilment, quarterly or half-yearly feedback
discussions deal with goal achievement and the fulfilment of specific organization ex-
pectations. It all centres around problem solving, the perfection of existing strengths and
surpassing of weaknesses.