advantages of essay appraisal method

What is the Essay Method for Performance Appraisals?

While some would label it as the “grandfather” of performance appraisal methods, the essay method is still a commonly used appraisal method in a variety of business models. The essay method, sometimes known as the “free-form method,” is a performance review system where a superior creates a written review of the employee’s performance.

These essays are meant to describe and record an employee’s strengths and weaknesses in job performance, identifying problem areas and creating a plan of action to remedy them. Whether the essay is written by the appraiser alone, or in collaboration with the appraisee, essays provide supervisors the opportunity to assess behaviors and performance with greater complexity and attention to detail.

There are many reasons that the essay method--which was one of the first methods used to evaluate performance--is still effective today.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of essay appraisals is their free-form approach to performance reviews. Whereas some employers can feel limited by rigid performance appraisal criteria, the essay method takes a far less structured stance than typical rating scale methods. In so doing, the appraiser is able to examine any relevant issue or attribute of performance that is pertinent to an employee’s job description or overall company growth.

The essay method assumes that not all employee traits and behaviors can be neatly analyzed, dissected, and rated--instead, it allows appraisers to place varied degrees of emphasis on certain qualities, issues, or attributes that are appropriate. Rather than being locked into a fixed system, this open-ended method gives supervisors the freedom of expression and critical thought. For appraisers, there exist special services such as StudyCrumb , which help in writing accurate essays.

When preparing an essay, a supervisor may consider any of the following factors of an employee as they relate to the company and employee relationship: potential and job knowledge, understanding of the company’s policies, relationships with peers and supervisors, planning and organization, and general attitudes and perceptions. This thorough, non-quantitative assessment provides a good deal more information about an employee than most other performance appraisal techniques.

However, as with all performance appraisal methods, there are a few limitations that the essay method suffers from that are worth examining.

One of the major drawbacks of the essay method is its highly subjective nature--they are often subject to bias, and it can be difficult to separate the assessment of the employee from the bias of the evaluator. While the essay can provide a good deal of information about the employee, it tends to tell more about the evaluator than the one being evaluated.

Another element that essays leave out (that other appraisal methods rely heavily on) is comparative results. Instead of utilizing standardized, numeric questions, these appraisals rely only on open-ended questions. While the essay method gives managers the ability to provide detailed and circumstantial information on a specific employee’s performance, it removes the component of comparing performance with other employees. This often makes it difficult for HR to distinguish top performers.

Overall, the appraisal method’s greatest advantage--the freedom of expression for the evaluator--can also serve as its greatest handicap. Even the actual writing of the reviews can upset or distort the process of employee appraisals, as the introduction of inconsistent, unorganized, or poor writing styles can distort and upset the review process. An employee may be unfairly helped or harmed by an evaluator’s writing ability. An evaluator can also find themselves lacking sufficient time to prepare the essay, and can write an essay hurriedly without accurately assessing an employee’s performance.

What is the essay method best used for?

Appraisal by essay is generally most effective in performance reviews for employees with atypical job descriptions or non-numerical goals. While other appraisals work well in analyzing performance for jobs that are subject to goals based on numbers, essays offer a more subjective analysis of performance for employees with managerial or customer service positions.

When analyzing production, the essay method is most effective in combination with another appraisal method. Using a graphic rating scale along with essay appraisals allows one method to focus solely on numbers, while the essay portion can be used to analyze other performance goals.

Doing essay appraisals right

Here are 3 things to strive for in order to set your company up for success in essay performance appraisals:

• Consistency.

Keeping a standard for style and length of essay appraisals can make the biggest difference in ensuring that your reviews are effective. Essays that are unstructured and unnecessarily complex can be detrimental to an employee’s rating, as well as using unspecific, flowery language that is not relevant to the employee’s performance. In order to remain efficient and effective, today’s evaluators should focus on making appraisal essays short and specific, ensuring that the entire review reflects the performance of the employee.

The appraiser should also ensure that they are making sufficient time in their schedule to prepare the essay. A busy evaluator may compromise an employee’s performance rating by writing a hurried essay, or running out of time to thoroughly assess employee performance. It’s important for all participants of essay appraisals to take enough time to write a consistent, accurate, and succinct review in order to set employees up for success.

2. Proficiency.

If you’ve chosen to use essay appraisals in your organization, it’s important to ensure that your appraisers possess the ability to write well. Even if an essay contains detailed, circumstantial information, it becomes difficult to extract valuable data from a poorly written essay. To ensure that nothing stands between an HR professional’s ability to assess an employee’s performance, evaluators should be trained as well-equipped writers.

Giving writing assistant tools or tips to supervisors can make all the difference in the accuracy and efficiency of an employee’s performance review.

2. Objectivity.

Subjectivity is both a strength and a weakness in essay appraisals. Not only are essays themselves often biased, but the misinterpretation of essays can even further distance the main evaluator from an accurate portrayal of an employee’s performance. Including objective standards in a performance review results in a more balanced and productive review process, and helps to eliminate the forming of incorrect conclusions about an employee’s behavior and performance.

Organizations often implement this goal by pairing essay appraisals with another appraisal method, such as graphic scale ratings, to draw more accurate conclusions and performance data. In so doing, evaluators can utilize all of the free expression and open-ended characteristics of an essay appraisal, while still maintaining accurate, easily translated results that are effective for the overall organization.

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The Essay Method of Performance Appraisal

Unleashing the Power of Narrative: A Comprehensive Guide to the Essay Method of Performance Appraisal

In today's dynamic work environment, performance appraisals play a crucial role in driving employee engagement, development, and overall organizational success.  choosing the right appraisal method is essential to ensure insightful feedback, clear goal setting, and a productive dialogue between managers and employees..

This guide delves into the Essay Method of Performance Appraisal, a narrative-based approach that offers a flexible and in-depth way to evaluate employee performance. We'll explore its core principles, advantages and disadvantages, best practices for implementation, and how it compares to other popular appraisal techniques.

Understanding the Essay Method of Performance Appraisal

Definition and core principles.

The Essay Method, also known as the Free-Form Method, is a qualitative performance appraisal approach where the manager writes a narrative description of the employee's performance during the review period. This description typically focuses on the employee's strengths, weaknesses, achievements, contributions, and areas for improvement. Unlike structured methods with predetermined rating scales, the Essay Method allows for a more nuanced and comprehensive analysis of an employee's performance.

Here are the core principles of the Essay Method:

• Focus on narrative: The appraisal is written as a story that details the employee's performance journey.
• Emphasis on specific examples: Concrete examples of behaviors, actions, and results support the evaluation of strengths and weaknesses.
• Holistic perspective: The essay considers not just job duties but also the employee's overall contribution to the team and organization.
• Development-oriented: The appraisal should identify areas for improvement and provide actionable plans for growth.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Essay Method

The Essay Method offers several advantages:

• Flexibility: It adapts to any role and allows for a tailored evaluation based on specific job requirements.
• Richness of detail: Managers can delve deeper into specific achievements, challenges, and areas for development.
• Open communication: The narrative format encourages a more open and conversational dialogue between managers and employees.
• Focus on potential: The essay can explore the employee's developmental potential and future aspirations.

However, the Essay Method also has some disadvantages:

• Subjectivity: Evaluations can be subjective and prone to bias if not conducted carefully.
• Time-consuming: Writing a well-crafted essay appraisal can be time-consuming for both managers and employees.
• Lack of standardization: Without clear guidelines, essays might lack consistency across the organization.
• Potential for bias: Unconscious biases can influence the way managers write the essay, impacting its fairness.

When to Use the Essay Method

The Essay Method is well-suited for situations where:

• A holistic evaluation is needed: The appraisal needs to consider not just job duties but also the employee's broader contribution to the team and organization.
• Development is a key focus: The emphasis is on identifying areas for growth and providing a clear roadmap for improvement.
• Roles are complex and multifaceted: The job description is nuanced and requires a more detailed evaluation than a simple rating scale can provide.
• Open communication is desired: The organization prioritizes fostering an environment of open communication and feedback.

Crafting Effective Essay Appraisals

Setting clear expectations and goals.

The foundation of a successful essay appraisal lies in establishing clear expectations and goals at the beginning of the review period. This can be achieved through:

• Performance agreements: Develop a formal document outlining key performance indicators (KPIs), objectives, and expected behaviors for the employee throughout the review period. This agreement serves as a reference point for the essay appraisal, ensuring alignment between expectations and performance evaluation.
• Regular check-ins: Schedule regular one-on-one meetings throughout the review period to discuss progress, address challenges, and provide ongoing feedback. These check-ins provide valuable insights and specific examples that can be woven into the essay appraisal later.

Structuring the Essay Narrative

‍ The structure of your essay appraisal should be clear and easy to follow. Here's a recommended approach:

‍ Introduction:

Briefly introduce the employee and the review period.

‍ Strengths and Achievements:

• Highlight the employee's key strengths and achievements during the review period.
• Use specific examples to showcase how their skills and actions contributed to positive outcomes.
• Quantify achievements whenever possible (e.g., "increased sales by 15%").

Areas for Development:

• Identify areas where the employee can improve.
• Focus on specific behaviors, not personality traits.
• Offer constructive feedback and suggestions for development, outlining potential training opportunities or resources.

Contributions and Teamwork:

• Discuss the employee's contributions to the team and overall organizational goals.
• Describe how they collaborated effectively with colleagues and fostered a positive work environment.
• If applicable, highlight instances where the employee demonstrated leadership or initiative.

Overall Performance:

• Provide a concise summary of the employee's overall performance based on the previous sections.
• Tie back to the established performance agreements or goals set at the beginning of the review period.

Development Plan:

• In collaboration with the employee, outline a clear and actionable development plan for the next review period.
• Specify concrete goals, learning objectives, and resources (e.g., attending workshops, mentoring programs) to support professional growth.

Conclusion:

• Briefly summarize the key takeaways from the appraisal.
• Reiterate the employee's value to the team and organization.
• Express positive support for their continued development and future success.

Focusing on Specifics and Behaviors

‍ The strength of your essay appraisal lies in its ability to move beyond generalities and focus on specific details.  Here's how:

• Example-driven evaluation: Support your evaluation of strengths and weaknesses with concrete examples of the employee's behaviors, actions, and results.
• Quantify whenever possible: When describing achievements, use quantifiable data to illustrate the impact of the employee's work.
• Focus on observable behaviors: Describe the employee's actions and how they played out in specific situations, rather than subjective interpretations of their personality.

Integrating Strengths and Weaknesses

‍ An effective essay appraisal seamlessly integrates the employee's strengths and weaknesses.

• Leveraging strengths: Highlight how the employee's strengths can be applied to address their areas for development.
• Development through strengths: Frame development plans around building on existing strengths to overcome weaknesses.
• Holistic view: Presenting a balanced picture of strengths and weaknesses allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the employee's performance.

Providing Actionable Development Plans

‍ The essay appraisal should not simply identify areas for improvement; it should also provide a clear roadmap for the employee's development.

• SMART goals: Set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals for improvement.
• Collaborative planning: Work with the employee to develop the development plan, ensuring their buy-in and commitment to achieving the goals.
• Resource identification: Identify specific resources like training programs, mentoring opportunities, or online courses that can support the employee's development journey.

Remember, a well-crafted development plan fosters a sense of ownership and empowers the employee to take charge of their professional growth.

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The Pros and Cons of Different Performance Appraisal Methods

Morgane Lança

Employee performance management is not a walk in the park, and there are many evaluation methods and tools to choose from. If you want to choose the right type of assessment for your specific business goals, you need to know the pros and cons of each performance review process.

Read on for more information on each performance appraisal process and their pros and cons!

1) Traditional performance reviews or checklist method

Employees are evaluated according to a checklist of predetermined key performance indicators and strengths and weaknesses such as time management skills. Supervisors determine whether the evaluated employee’s performance meets these criteria and provide structured goals. Most of the time, these employee appraisals take place annually and workers are rated on a linear scale.

• Structure and formality : Traditional performance reviews provide a structured framework for evaluating and discussing employee performance. They often follow a set process and timeline, which can help ensure consistency across the organization.
• Learning and development : These reviews offer an opportunity for supervisors to provide feedback on an employee’s performance, strengths, and areas for improvement. They can be a platform for discussing career goals, development plans, and performance expectations.
• Compensation and rewards : Annual employee reviews often play a role in determining compensation, promotions, and rewards. They provide a basis for identifying high-performing employees who may be eligible for salary increases, bonuses, or advancement opportunities.
• Performance documentation and tracking : Formal performance reviews typically involve documentation of the evaluation process and its outcomes. This can help build a record of performance discussions, achievements, and areas needing improvement, which can be useful for future reference and decision-making processes.
• Infrequent feedback : Annual performance reviews often imply that feedback is not shared on a daily basis. This time gap can hinder timely feedback and limit opportunities for ongoing communication and performance improvement.
• Bias and subjectivity : Annual employee performance reviews can lead to subjectivity, as they solely rely on the opinions of supervisors. This can lead to biased assessments based on personal perceptions and negative experiences for employees.
• Focus on past performance : These reviews often emphasize past performance rather than real-time or future-oriented assessments. They may not capture recent accomplishments or changes in an employee’s performance since the last review meeting.
• Anxiety and stress : The anticipation of an annual performance review can create anxiety and stress for employees. This once-a-year process can make the evaluation feel high-stakes and put pressure on both supervisors and employees.
• Lack of continuous feedback : Traditional reviews do not provide the feedback loop necessary for ongoing feedback and coaching. Employees may miss out on regular opportunities to receive guidance, suggestions for improvement, support, and recognition for their work.
• Administrative burden : Conducting annual reviews for all employees can be time-consuming, especially in large organizations. This can divert resources from other important tasks and potentially delay the feedback process.

The manufacturing industry, warehouses and retail companies can get great results from traditional employee appraisal systems. Indeed, these evaluations often focus on quantitative evaluation criteria that fit with repetitive tasks.

2) 360-Degree System

360-degree feedback consists of multi-rater feedback collected about an employee from their peers, their managers, and themselves. Obtaining constructive feedback coming from different perspectives helps gather comprehensive insights on employee performance strategies in the workplace.

• Feedback from multiple sources : Collecting feedback from peers, employees, and supervisors helps build a comprehensive evaluation.
• Upward feedback : This method encourages feedback from teams regarding their supervisor and management, meaning that everyone is accountable for their own performance.
• Broader perspective on employee performance : When conducted right, these evaluations provide a general and fair perspective of employee performance throughout the entire company.
• Encourages self-awareness and development : Receiving constructive feedback from multiple raters encourages self-reflection and development. Moreover, 360-degree feedback includes a self-evaluation that further fosters professional growth.
• Time-consuming process : Gathering feedback from multiple raters takes time and this method might be difficult to implement in your business.
• Personal biases : Office conflicts and personal opinions might influence raters and cause partial appraisals.
• Issues of anonymity : Anonymity – or lack thereof – may affect the quality and honesty of feedback.

All companies can use 360-degree feedback – it more so depends on the job category. Managers can particularly benefit from this process and it can be adjusted depending on the industry (companies that provide services can use client feedback for the evaluation). The downside is that this method can be quite costly and time consuming depending on your business reality.

3) Management by Objectives (MBO)

This method defines clear and concrete goals that the employee and the organization aim to achieve. These objectives may be quantitative or qualitative, and tracking them often requires regular performance meetings.

• Goal-setting and alignment with organizational objectives : With a MBO approach, self-development objectives and organizational goals are aligned for better workflows and greater productivity.
• Employee participation and ownership : Employees participate in goal setting, which is proven to multiply their chances to be engaged by 3,6. They are also more likely to be proud of their performance and committed to improving it.
• Clear framework : This method provides a clear framework for evaluating performance based on measurable goals such as SMART goals . This means that everyone has a clear idea of what they have to do and can see the impact of their productivity on the company’s mission.
• Challenge of setting measurable goals : Although measurable goals are effective, they can be difficult to set up depending on the company’s roles. This performance appraisal method might be more efficient in some teams than others.
• Focus on short-term goals : Defining short-term objectives may result in a narrow focus that neglects broader aspects of performance and sets aside development opportunities.
• Reliance on goal attainment : Solely focusing on goal attainment might lead to a lack of recognition for smaller but valuable contributions.

This method is interesting for companies that work by project completion – consulting and professional services, for instance. A relationship of trust and providing autonomy to employees is crucial, so the evaluated team dynamic matters here.

4) Self-Assessment Method

Employees evaluate their own performance based on predefined criteria or goals to further encourage their personal commitment to their performance and growth.

• Self-reflection : Employees who reflect on their own performance have a better understanding of the challenges they need to overcome to become high performers. They are also more likely to request growth opportunities and share their ambitions with their managers.
• Ownership : Owning up to your individual performance and the way it impacts the team and the organization at large encourages growth and renewal.
• Self-development : Self-assessment is one of the best drivers of individual development as employees are able to regularly analyze their performance and its evolution over time.
• Lack of objectivity and biases : Evaluating your own performance is not an easy feat. Employees might be tempted to positively rate themselves to avoid questioning their practices. Objectively rating your strengths and weaknesses is a method that requires training beforehand.
• Issues of self-worth : On the contrary, some employees might have issues recognizing their self-worth and underrate themselves, which undermines their self-assessment.
• Need more varied perspectives : Self-assessments are not enough on their own and they need to be implemented alongside another appraisal method to be efficient, which might be complicated and time-consuming for some companies.

Industries which typically focus on qualitative criteria such as behavior and people skills can greatly benefit from using this appraisal method. This is the case of service industries, for example.

Of course, other appraisal methods exist, such as the 9-box grid appraisal and many others. However, with the previous examples we introduced, you will get a strong idea of which performance appraisal process will be the most efficient for your reality.

Some of these methods’ limitations can be addressed by implementing a healthy feedback culture consisting of regular check-ins, ongoing performance management, and effective performance management software tools. Indeed, regular and actionable feedback optimizes employee performance management and fosters productivity and development.

Do you want to implement the best performance appraisal method in your organization?

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11.2 Appraisal Methods

Learning objective.

• Be able to describe the various appraisal methods.

It probably goes without saying that different industries and jobs need different kinds of appraisal methods. For our purposes, we will discuss some of the main ways to assess performance in a performance evaluation form. Of course, these will change based upon the job specifications for each position within the company. In addition to industry-specific and job-specific methods, many organizations will use these methods in combination, as opposed to just one method. There are three main methods of determining performance. The first is the trait method , in which managers look at an employee’s specific traits in relation to the job, such as friendliness to the customer. The behavioral method looks at individual actions within a specific job. Comparative methods compare one employee with other employees. Results methods are focused on employee accomplishments, such as whether or not employees met a quota.

Within the categories of performance appraisals, there are two main aspects to appraisal methods. First, the criteria are the aspects the employee is actually being evaluated on, which should be tied directly to the employee᾿s job description. Second, the rating is the type of scale that will be used to rate each criterion in a performance evaluation: for example, scales of 1–5, essay ratings, or yes/no ratings. Tied to the rating and criteria is the weighting each item will be given. For example, if “communication” and “interaction with client” are two criteria, the interaction with the client may be weighted more than communication, depending on the job type. We will discuss the types of criteria and rating methods next.

Graphic Rating Scale

The graphic rating scale , a behavioral method, is perhaps the most popular choice for performance evaluations. This type of evaluation lists traits required for the job and asks the source to rate the individual on each attribute. A discrete scale is one that shows a number of different points. The ratings can include a scale of 1–10; excellent, average, or poor; or meets, exceeds, or doesn’t meet expectations, for example. A continuous scale shows a scale and the manager puts a mark on the continuum scale that best represents the employee’s performance. For example:

The disadvantage of this type of scale is the subjectivity that can occur. This type of scale focuses on behavioral traits and is not specific enough to some jobs. Development of specific criteria can save an organization in legal costs. For example, in Thomas v. IBM , IBM was able to successfully defend accusations of age discrimination because of the objective criteria the employee (Thomas) had been rated on.

Many organizations use a graphic rating scale in conjunction with other appraisal methods to further solidify the tool’s validity. For example, some organizations use a mixed standard scale , which is similar to a graphic rating scale. This scale includes a series of mixed statements representing excellent, average, and poor performance, and the manager is asked to rate a “+” (performance is better than stated), “0” (performance is at stated level), or “−” (performance is below stated level). Mixed standard statements might include the following:

• The employee gets along with most coworkers and has had only a few interpersonal issues.
• This employee takes initiative.
• The employee consistently turns in below-average work.
• The employee always meets established deadlines.

An example of a graphic rating scale is shown in Figure 11.1 “Example of Graphic Rating Scale” .

Essay Appraisal

In an essay appraisal , the source answers a series of questions about the employee’s performance in essay form. This can be a trait method and/or a behavioral method, depending on how the manager writes the essay. These statements may include strengths and weaknesses about the employee or statements about past performance. They can also include specific examples of past performance. The disadvantage of this type of method (when not combined with other rating systems) is that the manager’s writing ability can contribute to the effectiveness of the evaluation. Also, managers may write less or more, which means less consistency between performance appraisals by various managers.

Checklist Scale

A checklist method for performance evaluations lessens the subjectivity, although subjectivity will still be present in this type of rating system. With a checklist scale , a series of questions is asked and the manager simply responds yes or no to the questions, which can fall into either the behavioral or the trait method, or both. Another variation to this scale is a check mark in the criteria the employee meets, and a blank in the areas the employee does not meet. The challenge with this format is that it doesn’t allow more detailed answers and analysis of the performance criteria, unless combined with another method, such as essay ratings. A sample of a checklist scale is provided in Figure 11.3 “Example of Checklist Scale” .

Figure 11.1 Example of Graphic Rating Scale

Figure 11.2 Example of Essay Rating

Figure 11.3 Example of Checklist Scale

Critical Incident Appraisals

This method of appraisal, while more time-consuming for the manager, can be effective at providing specific examples of behavior. With a critical incident appraisal , the manager records examples of the employee’s effective and ineffective behavior during the time period between evaluations, which is in the behavioral category. When it is time for the employee to be reviewed, the manager will pull out this file and formally record the incidents that occurred over the time period. The disadvantage of this method is the tendency to record only negative incidents instead of postive ones. However, this method can work well if the manager has the proper training to record incidents (perhaps by keeping a weekly diary) in a fair manner. This approach can also work well when specific jobs vary greatly from week to week, unlike, for example, a factory worker who routinely performs the same weekly tasks.

Work Standards Approach

For certain jobs in which productivity is most important, a work standards approach could be the more effective way of evaluating employees. With this results-focused approach, a minimum level is set and the employee’s performance evaluation is based on this level. For example, if a sales person does not meet a quota of $1 million, this would be recorded as nonperforming. The downside is that this method does not allow for reasonable deviations. For example, if the quota isn’t made, perhaps the employee just had a bad month but normally performs well. This approach works best in long-term situations, in which a reasonable measure of performance can be over a certain period of time. This method is also used in manufacuring situations where production is extremely important. For example, in an automotive assembly line, the focus is on how many cars are built in a specified period, and therefore, employee performance is measured this way, too. Since this approach is centered on production, it doesn’t allow for rating of other factors, such as ability to work on a team or communication skills, which can be an important part of the job, too.

Ranking Methods

In a ranking method system (also called stack ranking), employees in a particular department are ranked based on their value to the manager or supervisor. This system is a comparative method for performance evaluations.The manager will have a list of all employees and will first choose the most valuable employee and put that name at the top. Then he or she will choose the least valuable employee and put that name at the bottom of the list. With the remaining employees, this process would be repeated. Obviously, there is room for bias with this method, and it may not work well in a larger organization, where managers may not interact with each employee on a day-to-day basis.

To make this type of evaluation most valuable (and legal), each supervisor should use the same criteria to rank each individual. Otherwise, if criteria are not clearly developed, validity and halo effects could be present. The Roper v. Exxon Corp case illustrates the need for clear guidelines when using a ranking system. At Exxon, the legal department attorneys were annually evaluated and then ranked based on input from attorneys, supervisors, and clients. Based on the feedback, each attorney for Exxon was ranked based on their relative contribution and performance. Each attorney was given a group percentile rank (i.e., 99 percent was the best-performing attorney). When Roper was in the bottom 10 percent for three years and was informed of his separation with the company, he filed an age discrimination lawsuit. The courts found no correlation between age and the lowest-ranking individuals, and because Exxon had a set of established ranking criteria, they won the case (Grote, 2005).

Another consideration is the effect on employee morale should the rankings be made public. If they are not made public, morale issues may still exist, as the perception might be that management has “secret” documents.

Fortune 500 Focus

Critics have long said that a forced ranking system can be detrimental to morale; it focuses too much on individual performance as opposed to team performance. Some say a forced ranking system promotes too much competition in the workplace. However, many Fortune 500 companies use this system and have found it works for their culture. General Electric (GE) used perhaps one of the most well-known forced ranking systems. In this system, every year managers placed their employees into one of three categories: “A” employees are the top 20 percent, “B” employees are the middle 70 percent, and “C” performers are the bottom 10 percent. In GE’s system, the bottom 10 percent are usually either let go or put on a performance plan. The top 20 percent are given more responsibility and perhaps even promoted. However, even GE has reinvented this stringent forced ranking system. In 2006, it changed the system to remove references to the 20/70/10 split, and GE now presents the curve as a guideline. This gives more freedom for managers to distribute employees in a less stringent manner 1 .

The advantages of a forced ranking system include that it creates a high-performance work culture and establishes well-defined consequences for not meeting performance standards. In recent research, a forced ranking system seems to correlate well with return on investment to shareholders. For example, the study (Sprenkel, 2011) shows that companies who use individual criteria (as opposed to overall performance) to measure performance outperform those who measure performance based on overall company success. To make a ranking system work, it is key to ensure managers have a firm grasp on the criteria on which employees will be ranked. Companies using forced rankings without set criteria open themselves to lawsuits, because it would appear the rankings happen based on favoritism rather than quantifiable performance data. For example, Ford in the past used forced ranking systems but eliminated the system after settling class action lawsuits that claimed discrimination (Lowery, 2011). Conoco also has settled lawsuits over its forced ranking systems, as domestic employees claimed the system favored foreign workers (Lowery, 2011). To avoid these issues, the best way to develop and maintain a forced ranking system is to provide each employee with specific and measurable objectives, and also provide management training so the system is executed in a fair, quantifiable manner.

In a forced distribution system, like the one used by GE, employees are ranked in groups based on high performers, average performers, and nonperformers. The trouble with this system is that it does not consider that all employees could be in the top two categories, high or average performers, and requires that some employees be put in the nonperforming category.

In a paired comparison system, the manager must compare every employee with every other employee within the department or work group. Each employee is compared with another, and out of the two, the higher performer is given a score of 1. Once all the pairs are compared, the scores are added. This method takes a lot of time and, again, must have specific criteria attached to it when comparing employees.

Human Resource Recall

How can you make sure the performance appraisal ties into a specific job description?

Management by Objectives (MBO)

Management by objectives (MBOs) is a concept developed by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book The Practice of Management (Drucker, 2006). This method is results oriented and similar to the work standards approach, with a few differences. First, the manager and employee sit down together and develop objectives for the time period. Then when it is time for the performance evaluation, the manager and employee sit down to review the goals that were set and determine whether they were met. The advantage of this is the open communication between the manager and the employee. The employee also has “buy-in” since he or she helped set the goals, and the evaluation can be used as a method for further skill development. This method is best applied for positions that are not routine and require a higher level of thinking to perform the job. To be efficient at MBOs, the managers and employee should be able to write strong objectives. To write objectives, they should be SMART (Doran, 1981):

• Specific. There should be one key result for each MBO. What is the result that should be achieved?
• Measurable. At the end of the time period, it should be clear if the goal was met or not. Usually a number can be attached to an objective to make it measurable, for example “sell $1,000,000 of new business in the third quarter.”
• Attainable. The objective should not be impossible to attain. It should be challenging, but not impossible.
• Result oriented. The objective should be tied to the company’s mission and values. Once the objective is made, it should make a difference in the organization as a whole.
• Time limited. The objective should have a reasonable time to be accomplished, but not too much time.

Setting MBOs with Employees

(click to see video)

An example of how to work with an employee to set MBOs.

To make MBOs an effective performance evaluation tool, it is a good idea to train managers and determine which job positions could benefit most from this type of method. You may find that for some more routine positions, such as administrative assistants, another method could work better.

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)

A BARS method first determines the main performance dimensions of the job, for example, interpersonal relationships. Then the tool utilizes narrative information, such as from a critical incidents file, and assigns quantified ranks to each expected behavior. In this system, there is a specific narrative outlining what exemplifies a “good” and “poor” behavior for each category. The advantage of this type of system is that it focuses on the desired behaviors that are important to complete a task or perform a specific job. This method combines a graphic rating scale with a critical incidents system. The US Army Research Institute (Phillips, et. al., 2006) developed a BARS scale to measure the abilities of tactical thinking skills for combat leaders. Figure 11.4 “Example of BARS” provides an example of how the Army measures these skills.

Figure 11.4 Example of BARS

Figure 11.5 More Examples of Performance Appraisal Types

How Would You Handle This?

Playing Favorites

You were just promoted to manager of a high-end retail store. As you are sorting through your responsibilities, you receive an e-mail from HR outlining the process for performance evaluations. You are also notified that you must give two performance evaluations within the next two weeks. This concerns you, because you don’t know any of the employees and their abilities yet. You aren’t sure if you should base their performance on what you see in a short time period or if you should ask other employees for their thoughts on their peers’ performance. As you go through the files on the computer, you find a critical incident file left from the previous manager, and you think this might help. As you look through it, it is obvious the past manager had “favorite” employees and you aren’t sure if you should base the evaluations on this information. How would you handle this?

Table 11.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Each Performance Appraisal Method

Key Takeaways

• When developing performance appraisal criteria, it is important to remember the criteria should be job specific and industry specific.
• The performance appraisal criteria should be based on the job specifications of each specific job. General performance criteria are not an effective way to evaluate an employee.
• The rating is the scale that will be used to evaluate each criteria item. There are a number of different rating methods, including scales of 1–5, yes or no questions, and essay.
• In a graphic rating performance evaluation, employees are rated on certain desirable attributes. A variety of rating scales can be used with this method. The disadvantage is possible subjectivity.
• An essay performance evaluation will ask the manager to provide commentary on specific aspects of the employee’s job performance.
• A checklist utilizes a yes or no rating selection, and the criteria are focused on components of the employee’s job.
• Some managers keep a critical incidents file . These incidents serve as specific examples to be written about in a performance appraisal. The downside is the tendency to record only negative incidents and the time it can take to record this.
• The work standards performance appraisal approach looks at minimum standards of productivity and rates the employee performance based on minimum expectations. This method is often used for sales forces or manufacturing settings where productivity is an important aspect.
• In a ranking performance evaluation system, the manager ranks each employee from most valuable to least valuable. This can create morale issues within the workplace.
• An MBO or management by objectives system is where the manager and employee sit down together, determine objectives, then after a period of time, the manager assesses whether those objectives have been met. This can create great development opportunities for the employee and a good working relationship between the employee and manager.
• An MBO’s objectives should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, results oriented, and time limited.
• A BARS approach uses a rating scale but provides specific narratives on what constitutes good or poor performance.

Review each of the appraisal methods and discuss which one you might use for the following types of jobs, and discuss your choices.

• Administrative Assistant
• Chief Executive Officer
• Human Resource Manager
• Retail Store Assistant Manager

1 “The Struggle to Measure Performance,” BusinessWeek , January 9, 2006, accessed August 15, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_02/b3966060.htm .

Doran, G. T., “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives,” Management Review 70, no. 11 (1981): 35.

Drucker, P., The Practice of Management (New York: Harper, 2006).

Grote, R., Forced Ranking: Making Performance Management Work (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005).

Lowery, M., “Forcing the Issue,” Human Resource Executive Online , n.d., accessed August 15, 2011, http://www.hrexecutive.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=4222111&query=ranks .

Phillips, J., Jennifer Shafter, Karol Ross, Donald Cox, and Scott Shadrick, Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales for the Assessment of Tactical Thinking Mental Models (Research Report 1854), June 2006, US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, accessed August 15, 2011, http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari/pdf/RR1854.pdf .

Sprenkel, L., “Forced Ranking: A Good Thing for Business?” Workforce Management, n.d., accessed August 15, 2011, http://homepages.uwp.edu/crooker/790-iep-pm/Articles/meth-fd-workforce.pdf .

Human Resource Management Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

The Essay Method of Performance Appraisal

by Danielle Smyth

Published on 9 Aug 2019

The question of how to effectively gauge an employee’s performance on the job has been answered many times in many different ways, but there’s certainly no one agreed-upon method recommended by the human resources industry. Most experts agree that performance management is a critical part of having a successful business in today’s world and that effectively managing, developing and evaluating employees leads to a more efficient workforce and better company culture.

However, it’s deciding how to implement it within a certain company structure that can be challenging, and implementation is key to keeping the process effective rather than disruptive. The essay method of performance appraisal can be a great choice due to its thorough, thoughtful and unobtrusive nature.

Secrets to Effective Performance Appraisals

The truth is that effective performance appraisals take time. They take up the manager’s time, the employee’s time and the time of human resources, and they can potentially take up the time of teammates and co-workers who are asked about projects and collaboration.

For them to mean something, the process needs to be taken seriously, but that always must be balanced against the forward motion of the company and the day-to-day workloads of the employees in question.

Methods of Performance Appraisal

There are a number of methods used in today’s industries to evaluate employees. All of them require some sort of performance standard to be set at first and then an evaluation over a set period of time against that standard.

Some methods of review can be more effective than others, but some also require more dedicated time and thought from the manager or other evaluator. Some of the more common methods include the checklist method, the comparison or forced distribution method and the essay method.

Checklist Method of Performance Appraisal

With the checklist method, an employee is judged against a list of criteria. The criteria have been developed for the level or job of the employee, and usually all employees at similar levels are evaluated against it.

• Yes/no checklists simply ask the evaluator to determine whether the employee exhibits the behavior defined in each criterion: for example, “comes to work on time,” “frequently contributes to group discussions” or “meets daily safety requirements.” It’s important to make sure that all criteria are phrased so that a "yes" is the desired answer because it can be very easy to confuse an evaluation when this isn’t the case. This provides a very simple and straightforward way of judging performance but won’t get into much nuance of individual strengths and weaknesses and may not do much to differentiate one employee from another.
• Leveled checklists ask the evaluator to rate the employee on some sort of scale for each criterion. This could be a scale from one to five where five is optimal, or it could be a verbal scale with levels like “needs improvement,” “meets expectations” and “exceeds expectations.” Criteria might be “completes work within the timeline,” “collaborates with other departments” or “shows technical expertise.” These scaled ratings provide more nuance into each individual employee and should help highlight strengths as well as areas for improvement, but they require the manager to take more time to understand the performance within the department.

Comparison or Forced Distribution Methods

Comparison or forced distribution methods rate employees comparatively and against each other. This can be done in cases where an organization is rather flat, and it makes sense to compare a collection of employees together. The downside is that it can create a false sense of competition within employee groups or can result in bad attitudes.

• Paired evaluations give the evaluator a set of employee comparisons and asks him to choose who is the better employee. This is normally done within a department. For example, a department of four employees would end up with six pairs for comparison, and the evaluator (or team) would then select the best employee within each pair. For larger departments, this can be time consuming for the evaluators.
• Rankings simply ask the evaluator to rank employees from best to worst. This method is fully based on the perception of the evaluator and is not entirely popular because it is not systematic and can be easily affected by undiscovered bias on the part of the evaluator. It is, however, relatively easy to do for any manager who knows the team well.
• Forced distribution methods focus on the fact that most evaluators tend to rate their employees well. It requires the evaluators to meet a set distribution within their evaluations such that each evaluation finds poor performers as well as excellent ones. While this can be a way to identify areas for improvement, it can also be read as having to meet a quota with ratings, which can lead to dissent.

Essay Evaluation Method

The essay method is a fairly straightforward approach in which the manager or evaluator writes a descriptive essay about each employee. The essay would cover the employees' achievements throughout the evaluation period as well as their strengths and weaknesses. The essay format gives the evaluators the flexibility to focus on whatever they personally find important about the individual’s performance.

However, the essay method can be time consuming for the manager, and it requires a certain level of writing skill for the evaluation to be meaningful. It also is unlikely to be systematic, which can make it difficult to compare evaluations from person to person.

Performance Appraisal Essays

The performance evaluation essay is maybe the most interesting of the methods, as it allows a manager to genuinely express thoughts about the employee in question rather than having to work with a template or list of criteria or comparisons.

There are advantages to this, mainly in allowing the appraisers to focus on what they feel is important for each individual whom they are evaluating. The downside of this apparent freedom is because the entire essay is subjective based on the evaluator’s approach, it becomes difficult to obtain any big-picture conclusions about the department, and it can be difficult to compare employees within a certain group.

The key to a successful performance appraisal essay is the writing skills of the person assembling it . Her attention to basic essay structure and her descriptions of the behaviors on which she focuses will determine whether the right message will get across during the evaluation, both to the employee and to the team of other managers and human resources employees who may be involved with ratings, promotions and improvement plans. Some attention to basic essay-writing principles should help the evaluator construct an essay that will be meaningful to all parties involved.

" id="basic-essay-writing " class="title"> Basic Essay Writing

The following are essential to the writing of an effective performance appraisal essay:

• Preparation: For any essay, the first step is to gather information about the topic at hand. In this case, the manager should take the time to review past performance, current expectations and future needs for each employee whom he intends to evaluate. Review the employee’s achievements this year and examine reports and project records to get a full picture of performance.
• Evaluation: Once the information is at hand, it’s important to spend time connecting the dots to figure out what story the essay needs to tell about the employee’s performance. Identify any changes in the employee’s performance over the evaluation period and establish a list containing the behaviors that have been commendable and in which areas the employee could use improvement.
• Creation: Construct the essay in a manner that suits the manager’s writing style. Be sure to use professional, fair language and describe in words the successes and challenges of the employee’s work over this time period. 

Writing the Essay

The essay should open with an introduction summarizing the work completed by the employee during the evaluation period. Be sure to note key projects and pay attention to ongoing work as well as completed jobs. This is the time to discuss what the employee has done and recognize his overall contribution to the business. For example:

Jon successfully supported the infrastructure team, the McAce project and the office renovations project with technical drawings and materials lists as requested. He personally was able to complete the ventilation upgrade project, which ran over schedule but came in under budget. He submitted all monthly reports on time and took a training course this year to improve his skills at AutoCAD.

Highlight Employee Successes

The next portion of the essay should highlight some real successes for the employee. Mention his strengths and any areas where he has shown visible improvement over past performance. In this portion, focus less on what was done and more on how it was done. To continue the example:

Jon’s skill at estimation has improved greatly over the past year, with only one of his personal projects running over budget (as compared to at least 50 percent the previous year). This makes it much easier for the department to manage our overall budget appropriately and is greatly appreciated. Jon has been described as “friendly” and “personable” by his teammates, who have no problem approaching him when they need a drawing or have a question. He also had huge success with his contributions to the McAce project, which would have fallen behind schedule without his work.

Outline Areas for Improvement

After calling out successes, take some time to consider areas in which the employee needs improvement. For employees currently meeting all expectations, consider their future career path: Are there areas they need to develop in order to move into a new position? For employees whose performance may not be up to par, try to address it fairly and be straightforward and logical.

A number of Jon’s projects ran over schedule this year. It appears that Jon’s technical understanding of the work at hand could perhaps use some development. One such corrective action might be making sure to check with operators and maintenance personnel before launching a new project concept to make sure the problem at hand is actually being solved. Also, while Jon’s open personality makes him approachable, it can also lead to Jon taking extra-long breaks for conversation throughout the day, which can disturb some employees from their work.

Note that the criticisms are couched calmly in specific language that isn’t accusatory or angry and that the behaviors described correlate to an undesirable outcome. In some cases, a corrective action should be suggested. In other cases, it’s best to wait until the final step and develop a path forward with the employee in question.

" id="create-a-forward-plan " class="title"> Create a Forward Plan

The essay should end with a forward plan for the employee, involving any additional training or development she may need to meet current expectations as well as some sort of idea of the next step in her career.

The final step in the performance assessment essay is, of course, reviewing the essay with each employee. It’s best to give the employee a chance to read the evaluation and then open the floor to any questions the employee might have about what’s been written.

If an employee wants to challenge an assertion, she can be encouraged to write a short essay in return discussing why she might disagree with the essay. It’s important to discuss the successes and give recognition where it’s due as well as the challenges in order to ensure the employee understands.

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• Advantages and Disadvantages of Performance Appraisal

Everything you need to know about the advantages and disadvantages of performance appraisal. Performance appraisal may be viewed as a systematic and objective process of assessing an individual employee’s job performance and productivity at specified intervals of time in relation to certain pre-established criteria and the organisation’s objectives.

Performance appraisal always involves the following –

1. setting work standards, 2. assessing employee’s actual performance relative to those standards and 3. providing feedback to the employee with the aim of motivating him or her to eliminate performance deficiencies.

Performance appraisal also seeks to assess employee’s behaviour, accomplishments and potentials for future improvement, and points of his strength and weakness.

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Although performance appraisal lays emphasis on the assessment of individual employee’s performance, the process may also be made applicable to a group of employees or a team.

In this article we will discuss about the advantages and disadvantages of employee performance appraisal.

Learn about the Advantages and Disadvantages of Performance Appraisal of Employees

Advantages and disadvantages of performance appraisal of employees.

Performance appraisal means evaluating an employee’s current and/or past performance relative to his or her performance standards. It is designed to help employees understand their roles, objectives, expectations and performance success. Appraising performance assumes that performance standards have been set and feedback is given to the employees to help them eliminate performance deficiencies or continue to perform above par. It is an integrated process of setting goals, training and developing employees, appraising their performance and rewarding them.

Advantages of Performance Appraisal : Top 9 Benefits

Advantages of the performance appraisal are as follows:

1. Right Placement:

Performance appraisal is beneficial for assessing strengths and weaknesses of an employee. It enables to find out areas / tasks in which the employee is competent. Basically, the process is useful for identifying true potential and interests of the employees. Such analysis helps HR Department to assign right jobs according to the skill and competencies of employees.

2. Assistance to Improve Performance :

The manager / team head shares evaluation result with the respective employees. Such feedback is useful as it enables employees to focus on improving their strengths. The managers also suggest ideas and methods through which employees can overcome their weaknesses. Thus, the process helps in personal & career development of employees.

3. Acts as a Motivator :

The process involves recognizing & rewarding employee’s efforts and performance. It boosts their morale and confidence. Further, greater awareness of one’s true potential motivates employees to give their best performance. The organization acknowledges efforts of employees by giving higher salary, higher responsibilities, certificates and other monetary and non-monetary benefits. These benefits and recognition also motivates other employees to perform better at their job.

4. Planning and Designing Training Programmes :

The assessment of strengths and weaknesses of employees is useful for HR department to plan and design training programmes. The employees are provided with right training at right time to overcome their weaknesses and to develop their strengths. The content and method of training can be modified according to the human resource requirements.

5. Improves Employee and Management Relationship :

Performance appraisal is also an opportunity for the employees to discuss work related problems with their superiors & to find out ways to resolve them. Promotions and transfers are done on the basis of performance of employees. The fair promotion and transfer policies improve relationship between employees & management. It also facilitates good work atmosphere which directly benefits the final output.

6. Human Resource Planning and Development :

Performance appraisal is useful for taking inventory of quality of human resources available in the organization. This information helps in future planning and development of human resources. As per the assessment, the HRD can plan to recruit new employees or develop the quality of existing workforce in the organization. This ensures that organization has required quality and quantity of manpower to carry out its activities.

7. Improves Employee Communication with Managers :

Performance appraisal is also an opportunity for the employees to convey their needs and expectations to superiors. Further, employee can seek guidance of their managers to improve performance and also for career advancement. In short, the process gives a platform to improve employee communication.

8. Personal Development :

Appraisal facilitates acknowledgement of employee’s efforts and achievements. This motivates employees to learn and acquire new skills that aid them in personal and career development. This process boosts employees’ confidence and encourages them to take challenging tasks. During appraisal, managers also suggest ideas and methods to improve their attitude, behaviour, mental ability, emotional stability and so on.

9. Promotion and Transfers :

Performance appraisal is beneficial for identifying talented employees in the organization. This information helps the organization in grooming and developing competent employees. The organization acknowledges the efforts and achievement of employees through promotion, deputation, transfer etc. Performance appraisal ensures that promotion and transfer is only offered to employees based on merit and experience, not on the basis of seniority and favouritism.

Disadvantages of Performance Appraisal: Top 11 Disadvantages

Disadvantages of the performance appraisal are as follows:

1. Time Consuming Process :

Every manager or supervisor is responsible for preparing performance report for his team members. He is required to fill up an appraisal form for every team member and note down strengths, achievements, weaknesses and other observations of his team members. The process includes lot of procedures and is a time consuming process.

2. Inexperienced Evaluators :

Sometimes, appraisal may not be conducted by skilled or trained managers. The evaluation process may not be carried out properly owing to lack of knowledge and experience of evaluator.

3. Defective Rating or Personal Bias :

Managers avoid giving negative remarks or poor ratings as employees may not always view feedback in a positive manner. The managers try to avoid possible future conflicts or arguments with employees. Moreover, they also fear non- cooperation from employees in future.

It results in managers giving favourable ratings, so that work environment and relationships are not affected. Moreover, the evaluator’s personal relation with the employee also affects the process. Sometimes, managers may give higher ratings to favorite’s employees. They may also give low rating to deserving employees due to jealousy or fear that such employees might replace them.

4. Difficulty in Selection of Appraisal Method :

There are number of techniques to evaluate performance of employees. The appraisal technique must be selected on basis of the nature of organization, number of employees, work policies, budget etc. However, evaluators may not always select appraisal method that is suitable for the organization. They select appraisal method that is simple, less time consuming in order to reduce workload.

5. Central Tendency :

Managers have the tendency to give average rating to employees irrespective of their actual performance. It means average rating is given to both, the underperformers as well as the over performers. Generally, managers resort to this kind of behaviour in order to avoid displeasing other employees, future conflicts, jealousy and tension in the team. However, it is unfair for those employees who actually deserve high ratings but are given average score.

6. Horn & Halo Effect :

The behaviour to look only on negative aspects and ignore the positive aspects of a person is called as horn effect. It occurs when an appraiser makes his decision only on the basis of employee’s negative attributes. For instance, the appraiser gives overall low rating to an employee because he is overly focused on employee’s lack of communication and presentation skills.

He totally overlooks the fact that the employee is proficient in his job and completes tasks within the specified time. Halo effect is the opposite of Horn effect. In this, positive qualities of the employee are overshadowed by negative qualities of the employee. It means the appraiser gives high rating to employees also in those areas where he is not proficient.

7. Lack of Participation from Employees :

Employees resist performance appraisal system because they consider that the whole process of appraisal is only for pointing out their mistakes and criticizing their performance. Thus, they may not be actively involved in the evaluation process.

8. Spill Over Effect :

The behaviour to ignore employee’s current performance and to make decision on the basis of past performance and overall impression of the employee is termed as spillover effect. For instance, if the employee had a good performance during the last year, the supervisor by default rates him high even in the current year without considering his actual performance.

9. Attitude of Evaluator :

Mind set of manager also affects the evaluation process. The managers who are strict and have high expectations from his employees may give low ratings to all employees in spite, of good performance from employees. The lenient managers give high rating to all employees irrespective of their performance. Such evaluations are not valuable to the organization or the employees.

10. Inadequate Attention to Human Resource Development :

The main aim of appraisal system is to assess the performance of employees at current job so that they can be motivated and developed further. However, the performance reports may not be actually used by the managers to achieve this goal. The managers prepare these reports only to fulfil their duties and obligation of company policy. They may not always find time to evaluate actual performances of employees and to develop their abilities.

11. Expensive :

The organization has to allot huge funds for setting up assessment centres. Further, technical experts are to be hired to plan and design evaluation techniques. Sometimes, organizations also have to hire professional experts from outside to conduct the evaluation process.

Advantages of Performance Appraisal:

Following are the advantages of performance appraisal:

1. This system provides information of great assistance in making and enforcing decisions about promotions, pay increase, layoffs and transfers.

2. It serves as a guide for employee’s development.

3. Performance appraisal puts a psychological pressure on workers to improve their performance on the job.

4. This serves to maintain fair relationship in groups.

5. This system avoids errors of nepotism, self-interest and discrimination while promoting and enhancing wages and salaries.

6. Personnel decision can be taken on the basis of this performance appraisal system

7. It is an efficient device for rating their personnel as it enhances proper control on sub-ordinates.

8. Timely, systematically, up to date, honestly and sincerely performance appraisal creates mutual understanding, trust and confidence among the supervisor – sub – ordinate relationship.

Thus, it has been seen that performance appraisal is an important tool of personnel management.

Disadvantages of Performance Appraisal:

The most problems involved in performance appraisal are as follows:

1. Errors in Rating:

Performance appraisal may not be valid indicator of performance and potential of employees due to the following types of errors:

(a) Halo Effect – It is the tendency to rate an employee consistently high or low on the basis of overall impression.

(b) Stereotyping – It implies forming a mental picture of a person on the basis of his age, sex, caste or religion.

(c) Central Tendency – It means assigning average ratings to all the employees in order to avoid commitment or involvement

(d) Constant Error – This tendency may be avoided by holding meetings so that the raters understand what is required of them.

(e) Personal Bias – Performance appraisal may become invalid because the rater dislikes an employee,

(f) Spillover effect – This arises when post- performance affects assessment of present performance. For instance, recent behaviour or performance of an employee may be used to judge him.

2. Lack of Reliability:

Reliability implies stability and consistency in the measurement. Inconsistent use of measuring standards and lack of training in appraisal techniques may also reduce reliability. Factors like initiative are highly subjective and cannot be quantified.

3. Incompetence:

Raters may fail to evaluate performance accurately due to lack of knowledge and experience. Past appraisal interview is often handled ineffectively.

4. Negative Approach:

Performance appraisal loses most of its value when the focus of management is on punishment rather than on development of employees.

5. Multiple Objectives:

Raters may get confused due to too many objectives or unclear objectives of performance appraisal.

6. Resistance:

Trade unions may resist performance appraisal on the ground that it involves discrimination among its members. Negative ratings may affect interpersonal relations and industrial relations particularly when employees or unions do not have faith in the system of performance appraisal.

7. Lack of Knowledge:

The staff appraising performance of employees might not be trained and experienced enough to make correct appraisal.

These include the benefits to the organization, to the supervisor, and to the employee himself or herself.

Organization:

1. Communicates corporate goals

2. Provides management with decision-making information on human resources

3. Provides objective basis for raises, promotions, training, and other personnel actions

4. Builds stronger working relationships

5. Improves overall organizational productivity

6. Provides documentation for inquiries on general promotion policies or individual claims of discrimination

Supervisor:

1. Builds management skills

2. Develops and improves rapport with employees

3. Identifies and rewards high performers

4. Identifies performers needing improvement for coaching/training

5. Improves individual employee productivity

6. Identifies general training needs

7. Demonstrates fairness to employees Improves group morale

1. Finds out how they’re doing

2. Provides recognition for accomplishments

3. Allows for two-way communication on goals and performance

4. Encourages taking responsibility for their performance and progress

5. Helps set goals and direct efforts

6. Provides opportunities for career development and improvement

7. Assures fair individual evaluations

1. There will be an objective analysis of traits of both the superior and subordinate.

2. There will be a chance for the subordinate to express his views even after performance appraisal.

3» An employee shall express his emotional needs and his value system which is considered taboo till today.

4. It overcomes the communication barrier.

5. It will remove the inherent weakness of the appraisal system i.e., subjective assessment of vague and abstract performance targets, unclear guidelines for appraisal, etc.

Disadvantages of Performance Appraisal :

Though the performance appraisal is a very useful technique, it suffers from serious limitations too.

Some of its limitations are as follows:

1. Though it is a useful technique of efficiency rating but there are certain personal characteristics which cannot be expressed either in figures or in any other measures.

2. However systematic and objective system of performance appraisal is used in the organisation, it is impossible to eliminate personal and subjective element from it.

3. Generally, there is the presence of ‘a halo’ effect which leads to a tendency to rate the same individual first, which once have stood first.

4. Some people are more distinct while some are very liberal in assigning the factors, points or number to the employees. They are unable to maintain a fair distinction between two individuals. It also nullifies the utility of this system.

5. Sometimes the results of performance appraisals are not confirmed by other techniques of motivation, incentive wages plans and so on. Factors are introduced in the managerial appraisal because of a fact or bias in the person concerned conducting the appraisal.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Performance Appraisa l of Employees

Performance appraisal may be viewed as a systematic and objective process of assessing an individual employee’s job performance and productivity at specified intervals of time in relation to certain pre-established criteria and the organisation’s objectives. Performance appraisal always involves the following – “1. setting work standards, 2. assessing employee’s actual performance relative to those standards and 3. providing feedback to the employee with the aim of motivating him or her to eliminate performance deficiencies.”

Performance appraisal also seeks to assess employee’s behaviour, accomplishments and potentials for future improvement, and points of his strength and weakness. Although performance appraisal lays emphasis on the assessment of individual employee’s performance, the process may also be made applicable to a group of employees or a team.

Advantages of Performance Appraisal :

Apart from contributing to the overall performance of the enterprise, performance appraisal is useful in various areas of organisation’s HR activities.

Some of the major HR areas in which advantages of performance appraisal can be obviously discerned are as follows:

1. Production and Productivity:

Where targets of performance or production per unit of time have been specified, employees try their best to achieve these and even go beyond within the specified time in expectation of consequential rewards. The employees usually also develop a spirit of competition, which ultimately results in enhancement of their productivity, thus assuring the organisation a minimum level of production. Similar phenomenon applies also to the processes where the piece-rate system is prevalent.

2. Employees’ Capabilities and Competence:

Performance appraisal makes it possible to identify the points of strength and weaknesses of employees. The organisation can conveniently adopt measures to rectify their deficiencies through suitable training and development programmes. Performance appraisal can also be helpful to employees in their career planning and development.

3. Promotions and Transfers:

The potentials of employees revealed through performance appraisal enable the management to take objective decision about the employees deserving promotion and those who are unsuitable. The employees also become aware that their level of performance will be a deciding factor in their future advancement. Even where unions pressurise for adopting seniority criterion as the basis for promotion, it is conceded that there must be a certain level of efficiency in deciding promotion cases.

Performance appraisal also makes it possible for the HR professionals to identify the employees whose services could be more fruitfully utilised by their transfer to some other suitable jobs. Habitual low performing employees may, however, have to face termination of their services.

4. Compensation:

In many organisations, various categories of employees including supervisors, managers and executives are paid handsome additional compensation packages for their high level of performance as revealed by the appraisal. The additional compensation packages for high performing employees usually comprise performance-based lump sum bonus, enhanced annual increment and improved fringe benefits.

Such inducements act as a potential motivational factor not only for the high performing employees, but also for those whose level of performance is not up to the mark. The low performing employees start making efforts to improve their performance in expectation of higher earnings and improved facilities.

5. Selection:

Performance appraisal also enables the organisation to identify those employees whose potentials could be more fruitfully utilised for higher positions. It also reveals the unavailability of suitable candidates from internal sources, with the only option to look to the external supply.

6. HR Planning:

Information about points of strength and weaknesses of existing employees as revealed by performance appraisal is also useful while making plans in regard to human resources requirements of the organisation.

Such information will be helpful to the organisation in framing workable plans in regard to the present and future requirements of the organisation, adoption of an appropriate T&D programme for developing needed skills and capabilities of employees, determination of compensation packages and incentives, adjustments of workforce and taking decisions on other related issues.

7. Communication:

Performance appraisal is also useful in ensuring useful communication in the organisation. When the employees are convinced about the objectivity of their performance appraisals, they generally feel free in communicating with their superiors and peers about their strength and weaknesses.

Performance appraisals are also useful in making the process of identifying, measuring and developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning their performance with the organisation’s goals more effective and acceptable.

For the sake of easy understandability, it is desirable to give special attention to the major problems experienced in the course of application of the performance appraisal in a wider perspective.

These are briefly described below:

1. Lack of Clarity in Norms :

In some methods such as rating scales, employees may be rated as “poor”, “fair”, “good” or “excellent” in respect of each trait, for instance, “job knowledge”, “creativity”, “adaptability” and so on, but different raters often interpret the same degree on the scale and also the specific traits differently. Such a situation arises mainly on the account of ambiguity in the standards set. This often results in distorted ratings.

Appraisals laying emphasis on personal traits are more vulnerable to such a situation. The problem can be minimised by setting clear standards which can easily be understood by the raters.

2. Elements of Bias and Subjectivity :

Performance appraisals are done by human beings who may have their own biases and prejudices. In India, there have been numerous examples to show prejudicial approaches of the supervisors, managers and even executives in evaluating their subordinates’ performance based on considerations of caste, tribe, religion, language and region.

The bias may be positive in the sense of unreasonably helping a particular employee, and negative in the sense of harming an employee not liked by the appraiser. Appraisals may also be influenced by many other subjective considerations. As such, there is the need to adopt objective standards in every area of evaluation.

3. Leniency and Strictness :

Like lenient and strict examiners evaluating answer books in educational institutions, there are too lenient and too strict appraisers also in the business and industrial settings. Many of them develop such traits rather naturally. Thus, there is a great probability that too lenient appraisers rate even “average” employees as “very good”, whereas too strict appraisers may keep even “highly efficient” employees in the relegated “average” category.

More lenient appraisers may provide undue protection to inefficient employees at the cost of rightful claims of high performing ones. Too much strictness may also generate a demoralising effect on the motivation and morale of high performing employees.

There are also evidences to show the general impression about a particular employee influencing the ratings of the appraiser on all traits being evaluated. This is known as “halo effect.” This means that an employee about whom the rater has formed an unfavourable impression may be ranked very low on every trait even though he possesses potentials to be rated high.

On the other hand, a favourable impression about an employee may result in rating the performance of even an “average” employee as “excellent.” Objectively laid down standards will minimise the scope for too much leniency and too much strictness in appraisals and also reduce the scope of “halo effect.”

4. Central Tendency :

In many cases, the raters tend to avoid possible controversy or criticism by awarding middle level or average ratings. This tendency results in distorted ratings and especially denies the rightful claims of high performing employees in regard to enhanced compensation and benefits.

5. Element of Manipulation :

There are instances where managers and supervisors dominate over the entire process of performance appraisal and are in a position to manipulate things with a view to favouring employees of their own liking. On the other hand, there may be dominant employees, such as group or union leaders who exert undue pressure on the appraiser to accommodate them even when their performance has been consistently poor. In such cases, the option left before the raters is either to decline to be a rater or to manipulate things to accommodate them.

Related Articles:

• Performance Appraisal: Meaning, Characteristics and Advantages
• Performance Appraisal: Need and Features of Performance Appraisal
• Project Report on Performance Appraisal | Personnel Management

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11.3: Appraisal Methods

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Learning Objectives

• Be able to describe the various appraisal methods.

It probably goes without saying that different industries and jobs need different kinds of appraisal methods. For our purposes, we will discuss some of the main ways to assess performance in a performance evaluation form. Of course, these will change based upon the job specifications for each position within the company. In addition to industry-specific and job-specific methods, many organizations will use these methods in combination, as opposed to just one method. There are three main methods of determining performance. The first is the trait method, in which managers look at an employee’s specific traits in relation to the job, such as friendliness to the customer. The behavioral method looks at individual actions within a specific job. Comparative methods compare one employee with other employees. Results methods are focused on employee accomplishments, such as whether or not employees met a quota.

Within the categories of performance appraisals, there are two main aspects to appraisal methods. First, the criteria are the aspects the employee is actually being evaluated on, which should be tied directly to the employee᾿s job description. Second, the rating is the type of scale that will be used to rate each criterion in a performance evaluation: for example, scales of 1–5, essay ratings, or yes/no ratings. Tied to the rating and criteria is the weighting each item will be given. For example, if “communication” and “interaction with client” are two criteria, the interaction with the client may be weighted more than communication, depending on the job type. We will discuss the types of criteria and rating methods next.

Graphic Rating Scale

The graphic rating scale, a behavioral method, is perhaps the most popular choice for performance evaluations. This type of evaluation lists traits required for the job and asks the source to rate the individual on each attribute. A discrete scale is one that shows a number of different points. The ratings can include a scale of 1–10; excellent, average, or poor; or meets, exceeds, or doesn’t meet expectations, for example. A continuous scale shows a scale and the manager puts a mark on the continuum scale that best represents the employee’s performance. For example:

The disadvantage of this type of scale is the subjectivity that can occur. This type of scale focuses on behavioral traits and is not specific enough to some jobs. Development of specific criteria can save an organization in legal costs. For example, in Thomas v. IBM , IBM was able to successfully defend accusations of age discrimination because of the objective criteria the employee (Thomas) had been rated on.

Many organizations use a graphic rating scale in conjunction with other appraisal methods to further solidify the tool’s validity. For example, some organizations use a mixed standard scale, which is similar to a graphic rating scale. This scale includes a series of mixed statements representing excellent, average, and poor performance, and the manager is asked to rate a “+” (performance is better than stated), “0” (performance is at stated level), or “−” (performance is below stated level). Mixed standard statements might include the following:

• The employee gets along with most coworkers and has had only a few interpersonal issues.
• This employee takes initiative.
• The employee consistently turns in below-average work.
• The employee always meets established deadlines.

An example of a graphic rating scale is shown in Figure 11.1 “Example of Graphic Rating Scale” .

Essay Appraisal

In an essay appraisal, the source answers a series of questions about the employee’s performance in essay form. This can be a trait method and/or a behavioral method, depending on how the manager writes the essay. These statements may include strengths and weaknesses about the employee or statements about past performance. They can also include specific examples of past performance. The disadvantage of this type of method (when not combined with other rating systems) is that the manager’s writing ability can contribute to the effectiveness of the evaluation. Also, managers may write less or more, which means less consistency between performance appraisals by various managers.

Checklist Scale

A checklist method for performance evaluations lessens the subjectivity, although subjectivity will still be present in this type of rating system. With a checklist scale, a series of questions is asked and the manager simply responds yes or no to the questions, which can fall into either the behavioral or the trait method, or both. Another variation to this scale is a check mark in the criteria the employee meets, and a blank in the areas the employee does not meet. The challenge with this format is that it doesn’t allow more detailed answers and analysis of the performance criteria, unless combined with another method, such as essay ratings. A sample of a checklist scale is provided in Figure 11.3 “Example of Checklist Scale” .

Figure 11.1 Example of Graphic Rating Scale

Figure 11.2 Example of Essay Rating

Figure 11.3 Example of Checklist Scale

Critical Incident Appraisals

This method of appraisal, while more time-consuming for the manager, can be effective at providing specific examples of behavior. With a critical incident appraisal, the manager records examples of the employee’s effective and ineffective behavior during the time period between evaluations, which is in the behavioral category. When it is time for the employee to be reviewed, the manager will pull out this file and formally record the incidents that occurred over the time period. The disadvantage of this method is the tendency to record only negative incidents instead of postive ones. However, this method can work well if the manager has the proper training to record incidents (perhaps by keeping a weekly diary) in a fair manner. This approach can also work well when specific jobs vary greatly from week to week, unlike, for example, a factory worker who routinely performs the same weekly tasks.

Work Standards Approach

For certain jobs in which productivity is most important, a work standards approach could be the more effective way of evaluating employees. With this results-focused approach, a minimum level is set and the employee’s performance evaluation is based on this level. For example, if a sales person does not meet a quota of $1 million, this would be recorded as nonperforming. The downside is that this method does not allow for reasonable deviations. For example, if the quota isn’t made, perhaps the employee just had a bad month but normally performs well. This approach works best in long-term situations, in which a reasonable measure of performance can be over a certain period of time. This method is also used in manufacuring situations where production is extremely important. For example, in an automotive assembly line, the focus is on how many cars are built in a specified period, and therefore, employee performance is measured this way, too. Since this approach is centered on production, it doesn’t allow for rating of other factors, such as ability to work on a team or communication skills, which can be an important part of the job, too.

Ranking Methods

In a ranking method system (also called stack ranking), employees in a particular department are ranked based on their value to the manager or supervisor. This system is a comparative method for performance evaluations.The manager will have a list of all employees and will first choose the most valuable employee and put that name at the top. Then he or she will choose the least valuable employee and put that name at the bottom of the list. With the remaining employees, this process would be repeated. Obviously, there is room for bias with this method, and it may not work well in a larger organization, where managers may not interact with each employee on a day-to-day basis.

To make this type of evaluation most valuable (and legal), each supervisor should use the same criteria to rank each individual. Otherwise, if criteria are not clearly developed, validity and halo effects could be present. The Roper v. Exxon Corp case illustrates the need for clear guidelines when using a ranking system. At Exxon, the legal department attorneys were annually evaluated and then ranked based on input from attorneys, supervisors, and clients. Based on the feedback, each attorney for Exxon was ranked based on their relative contribution and performance. Each attorney was given a group percentile rank (i.e., 99 percent was the best-performing attorney). When Roper was in the bottom 10 percent for three years and was informed of his separation with the company, he filed an age discrimination lawsuit. The courts found no correlation between age and the lowest-ranking individuals, and because Exxon had a set of established ranking criteria, they won the case (Grote, 2005).

Another consideration is the effect on employee morale should the rankings be made public. If they are not made public, morale issues may still exist, as the perception might be that management has “secret” documents.

Fortune 500 Focus

Critics have long said that a forced ranking system can be detrimental to morale; it focuses too much on individual performance as opposed to team performance. Some say a forced ranking system promotes too much competition in the workplace. However, many Fortune 500 companies use this system and have found it works for their culture. General Electric (GE) used perhaps one of the most well-known forced ranking systems. In this system, every year managers placed their employees into one of three categories: “A” employees are the top 20 percent, “B” employees are the middle 70 percent, and “C” performers are the bottom 10 percent. In GE’s system, the bottom 10 percent are usually either let go or put on a performance plan. The top 20 percent are given more responsibility and perhaps even promoted. However, even GE has reinvented this stringent forced ranking system. In 2006, it changed the system to remove references to the 20/70/10 split, and GE now presents the curve as a guideline. This gives more freedom for managers to distribute employees in a less stringent manner 1 .

The advantages of a forced ranking system include that it creates a high-performance work culture and establishes well-defined consequences for not meeting performance standards. In recent research, a forced ranking system seems to correlate well with return on investment to shareholders. For example, the study (Sprenkel, 2011) shows that companies who use individual criteria (as opposed to overall performance) to measure performance outperform those who measure performance based on overall company success. To make a ranking system work, it is key to ensure managers have a firm grasp on the criteria on which employees will be ranked. Companies using forced rankings without set criteria open themselves to lawsuits, because it would appear the rankings happen based on favoritism rather than quantifiable performance data. For example, Ford in the past used forced ranking systems but eliminated the system after settling class action lawsuits that claimed discrimination (Lowery, 2011). Conoco also has settled lawsuits over its forced ranking systems, as domestic employees claimed the system favored foreign workers (Lowery, 2011). To avoid these issues, the best way to develop and maintain a forced ranking system is to provide each employee with specific and measurable objectives, and also provide management training so the system is executed in a fair, quantifiable manner.

In a forced distribution system, like the one used by GE, employees are ranked in groups based on high performers, average performers, and nonperformers. The trouble with this system is that it does not consider that all employees could be in the top two categories, high or average performers, and requires that some employees be put in the nonperforming category.

In a paired comparison system, the manager must compare every employee with every other employee within the department or work group. Each employee is compared with another, and out of the two, the higher performer is given a score of 1. Once all the pairs are compared, the scores are added. This method takes a lot of time and, again, must have specific criteria attached to it when comparing employees.

Human Resource Recall

How can you make sure the performance appraisal ties into a specific job description?

Management by Objectives (MBO)

Management by objectives (MBOs) is a concept developed by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book The Practice of Management (Drucker, 2006). This method is results oriented and similar to the work standards approach, with a few differences. First, the manager and employee sit down together and develop objectives for the time period. Then when it is time for the performance evaluation, the manager and employee sit down to review the goals that were set and determine whether they were met. The advantage of this is the open communication between the manager and the employee. The employee also has “buy-in” since he or she helped set the goals, and the evaluation can be used as a method for further skill development. This method is best applied for positions that are not routine and require a higher level of thinking to perform the job. To be efficient at MBOs, the managers and employee should be able to write strong objectives. To write objectives, they should be SMART (Doran, 1981):

• Specific. There should be one key result for each MBO. What is the result that should be achieved?
• Measurable. At the end of the time period, it should be clear if the goal was met or not. Usually a number can be attached to an objective to make it measurable, for example “sell $1,000,000 of new business in the third quarter.”
• Attainable. The objective should not be impossible to attain. It should be challenging, but not impossible.
• Result oriented. The objective should be tied to the company’s mission and values. Once the objective is made, it should make a difference in the organization as a whole.
• Time limited. The objective should have a reasonable time to be accomplished, but not too much time.

Setting MBOs with Employees

" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHgPnLCzBwU" class="replaced-iframe">(click to see video)

An example of how to work with an employee to set MBOs.

To make MBOs an effective performance evaluation tool, it is a good idea to train managers and determine which job positions could benefit most from this type of method. You may find that for some more routine positions, such as administrative assistants, another method could work better.

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)

A BARS method first determines the main performance dimensions of the job, for example, interpersonal relationships. Then the tool utilizes narrative information, such as from a critical incidents file, and assigns quantified ranks to each expected behavior. In this system, there is a specific narrative outlining what exemplifies a “good” and “poor” behavior for each category. The advantage of this type of system is that it focuses on the desired behaviors that are important to complete a task or perform a specific job. This method combines a graphic rating scale with a critical incidents system. The US Army Research Institute (Phillips, et. al., 2006) developed a BARS scale to measure the abilities of tactical thinking skills for combat leaders. Figure 11.4 “Example of BARS” provides an example of how the Army measures these skills.

Figure 11.4 Example of BARS

Figure 11.5 More Examples of Performance Appraisal Types

How Would You Handle This?

Playing Favorites

You were just promoted to manager of a high-end retail store. As you are sorting through your responsibilities, you receive an e-mail from HR outlining the process for performance evaluations. You are also notified that you must give two performance evaluations within the next two weeks. This concerns you, because you don’t know any of the employees and their abilities yet. You aren’t sure if you should base their performance on what you see in a short time period or if you should ask other employees for their thoughts on their peers’ performance. As you go through the files on the computer, you find a critical incident file left from the previous manager, and you think this might help. As you look through it, it is obvious the past manager had “favorite” employees and you aren’t sure if you should base the evaluations on this information. How would you handle this?

Key Takeaways

• When developing performance appraisal criteria, it is important to remember the criteria should be job specific and industry specific.
• The performance appraisal criteria should be based on the job specifications of each specific job. General performance criteria are not an effective way to evaluate an employee.
• The rating is the scale that will be used to evaluate each criteria item. There are a number of different rating methods, including scales of 1–5, yes or no questions, and essay.
• In a graphic rating performance evaluation, employees are rated on certain desirable attributes. A variety of rating scales can be used with this method. The disadvantage is possible subjectivity.
• An essay performance evaluation will ask the manager to provide commentary on specific aspects of the employee’s job performance.
• A checklist utilizes a yes or no rating selection, and the criteria are focused on components of the employee’s job.
• Some managers keep a critical incidents file . These incidents serve as specific examples to be written about in a performance appraisal. The downside is the tendency to record only negative incidents and the time it can take to record this.
• The work standards performance appraisal approach looks at minimum standards of productivity and rates the employee performance based on minimum expectations. This method is often used for sales forces or manufacturing settings where productivity is an important aspect.
• In a ranking performance evaluation system, the manager ranks each employee from most valuable to least valuable. This can create morale issues within the workplace.
• An MBO or management by objectives system is where the manager and employee sit down together, determine objectives, then after a period of time, the manager assesses whether those objectives have been met. This can create great development opportunities for the employee and a good working relationship between the employee and manager.
• An MBO’s objectives should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, results oriented, and time limited.
• A BARS approach uses a rating scale but provides specific narratives on what constitutes good or poor performance.
• Administrative Assistant
• Chief Executive Officer
• Human Resource Manager
• Retail Store Assistant Manager

1 “The Struggle to Measure Performance,” BusinessWeek , January 9, 2006, accessed August 15, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_02/b3966060.htm .

Doran, G. T., “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives,” Management Review 70, no. 11 (1981): 35.

Drucker, P., The Practice of Management (New York: Harper, 2006).

Grote, R., Forced Ranking: Making Performance Management Work (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005).

Lowery, M., “Forcing the Issue,” Human Resource Executive Online , n.d., accessed August 15, 2011, www.hrexecutive.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=4222111&query=ranks.

Phillips, J., Jennifer Shafter, Karol Ross, Donald Cox, and Scott Shadrick, Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales for the Assessment of Tactical Thinking Mental Models (Research Report 1854), June 2006, US Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, accessed August 15, 2011, www.hqda.army.mil/ari/pdf/RR1854.pdf.

Sprenkel, L., “Forced Ranking: A Good Thing for Business?” Workforce Management, n.d., accessed August 15, 2011, homepages.uwp.edu/crooker/790-iep-pm/Articles/meth-fd-workforce.pdf.

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