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Objective vs. Subjective Evaluations

Objective and subjective performance evaluations each have strengths and weaknesses. Objective metrics directly measure quantifiable outcomes like productivity or errors, but fail to capture complex job roles. Subjective evaluations allow for judgment of an employee's overall performance in complicated roles, but rely more on a supervisor's interpretation and could be seen as unfair. Most employers now use a hybrid system that incorporates both objective metrics and subjective assessments of qualities like professionalism or teamwork.

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80 views2 pages

Objective vs. Subjective Evaluations

Objective and subjective performance evaluations each have strengths and weaknesses. Objective metrics directly measure quantifiable outcomes like productivity or errors, but fail to capture complex job roles. Subjective evaluations allow for judgment of an employee's overall performance in complicated roles, but rely more on a supervisor's interpretation and could be seen as unfair. Most employers now use a hybrid system that incorporates both objective metrics and subjective assessments of qualities like professionalism or teamwork.

Uploaded by

Sher Awan
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Objective Vs.

Subjective Performance Evaluations

Objective Vs. Subjective Performance Evaluations

The Key Elements of Measuring Performance

How to Write an Accounting Staff Progress Report

Top-Down Performance Appraisal Method

What Is a Subjective Performance Evaluation?

Team Member Performance Evaluation Techniques

Management experts have debated for decades the most useful way to assess employee
performance. In today's businesses, employers tend to rely on a mix of subjective and objective
measures as part of a larger performance measurement process. Each measurement method has
its strengths and weaknesses.

Objective Measurement Metrics

An objective measurement typically defies interpretation: Either an employee was late five times
or she wasn't, or he met his widgets-per-hour target or he didn't. For that reason, some employers
use purely objective measures for employees who have repetitive or entry-level jobs –
performance is a function of doing (or not doing) some specific action, or in meeting per-product
or per-service productivity totals.

Subjective Measurement Metrics

Some jobs cannot be easily measured. Data analysts, attorneys and dolphin trainers each perform
a job that is difficult to distill into a few discrete metrics. Therefore, employers will determine
categories of measurement – for example, customer service or teamwork or professionalism.
Supervisors typically offer a numeric score that represents the employee's perceived performance
in that category, but the question of whether a specific rating is "correct" is primarily a matter of
interpretation.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Objective measures work best in situations where each employee can be assessed directly and
each employee's performance can be meaningfully compared to another employee. For example,
it is inappropriate to give part-time and full-time employees the same total-parts-per-month
score. However, objective measures fail when supervisors distill complex processes into a single
score that may not have much meaning in the real world. For example, attorneys should not be
measured on the quantity of legal briefs they file each month.
Subjective measures are very good at allowing a supervisor to exercise judgment about an
employee's performance in complicated systems. However, if the employer/employee
relationship is sour, employees may see a negative rating as either punitive or unfair.

Hybrid Evaluation Systems

Some employers employ a hybrid evaluation system. Some measures are objective, and some are
subjective. A supervisor might give a score for her perception of an employee's overall
professionalism but provide objective scores for the number of unplanned absences or customer
complaints. Or, a boss might assess 50 percent of an employee's performance based on objective
measures and 50 percent on "commitments" or "standards" or some other subjective measure of
quality.

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