Employee Ranking Systems LO16896

Will Barratt (egbarra@BEFAC.INDSTATE.EDU)
Sat, 7 Feb 1998 11:46:57 -0500

Replying to LO16865 --

I loved Fred Nickols post on scrapping the performance appraisal systems
(especially rankings). This helps to clarify the issue for me, and that
is: What problem is performance appraisal solving? Is this performance
evaluation the best solution to the problem?

First you define the problem (maintaining hierarchy is probably much of
the real problem, but the politically correct phrase may be "homeostasis
maintenance" or "innovation phobia") then you create a solution. I
believe that many organizations have performance appraisal programs in
place because someone told them to, and these programs are not tied to
problem at all. Most organizations don't really do anything with the data
anyway.

While I am not a real fan of 'appeal to authority' arguments, I suggest
"The Personnel Evaluation Standards" that comes out of education (and now
the military has adopted it) by The Joint Committee on Standards for
Educational Evaluation, Daniel Stuffelbeam, Chair ISBN 0-8039-3360-6.
This clearly says not to put a personal evaluation/performance review
program in place unless you really have a use for it. I would assert that
most organizations really don't use their performance review programs at
all well, and should just scrap them.

The same goes for program evaluations, outcome evaluations, etc. Well,
you see the drift here. Define real problems, get good information, and
use it.

I use performance reviews weekly with my students, with a clear goal in
mind. I supervise students in practica experiences, and we review their
performance in that arena also. There are very sophisticated processes of
performance review (there is an emerging literature that is getting
better), but to use one, you should really need one. The same goes for
program evaluations, outcome evaluations, etc.

Will Barratt
The Professor as information broker!
Indiana State University, Department of Counseling

-- 

"Will Barratt" <egbarra@BEFAC.INDSTATE.EDU>

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