The University of the West Indies

St. Augustine
Department of Behavioural Sciences
Faculty of Social Sciences
PSYC3014 Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Lecture 3 Notes

Evaluating Employee Performance

A thorough job analysis is the starting point for measuring and evaluating actual job
performance. Performance appraisals involve the assessment of worker performance on the
basis of predetermined organizational standards. Performance appraisals serve many
important purposes, including being the basis for personnel decisions and a means of
assessing performance. One way to categorize performance is in terms of objective and
subjective criteria. Objective performance criteria are more quantifiable measurements of
performance, such as the number of units produced or dollar sales. Subjective performance
criteria typically involve judgments or ratings of performance. Concerns for a performance
criterion include whether it is relevant to job success, called criterion relevance; whether the
criterion contains elements that detract from the “pure” assessment of performance, termed
criterion contamination; whether the degree to which a criterion falls short of perfect
assessment of job performance, called criterion deficiency; and whether the criterion is
usable, called criterion usefulness.
Research on ratings of job performance has examined who is making performance ratings.
Self-appraisals are ratings or evaluations made by the workers themselves. Peer appraisals
involve coworkers rating each other’s performance. In some instances, subordinates may rate
the performance of their supervisors. Most common, of course, are supervisory ratings of
subordinates’ performance. 360-degree feedback involves getting multiple performance
evaluations from supervisors, peers, subordinates, and customers.
There are a variety of methods for rating performance. Comparative methods of appraisal,
such as the paired comparison and forced distribution techniques, directly compare one
worker’s performance with that of another worker’s. Individual methods of appraisal do not
make direct comparisons with other workers. Individual methods include checklists and
forced-choice scales and are easy-to-use methods of appraisal that require the evaluator
simply to check off statements characteristic or uncharacteristic of a particular worker’s job
performance. The most common method of individual performance appraisal involves the use
of graphic rating scales, whereby an appraiser uses a standardized rating instrument to make a
numerical and/or verbal rating of various dimensions of job performance. A specific type of
rating technique, the behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS), uses examples of good and
poor behavioral incidents as substitutes for the scale anchors found in traditional rating
instruments.
A major problem in rating job performance is caused by systematic biases and errors.
Response tendency errors, such as leniency/severity or central tendency errors, lead to
consistently good, bad, or average ratings, respectively. Halo effects occur when appraisers
make overall positive (or negative) performance appraisals because of one known
outstanding characteristic or action. There are also errors caused by giving greater weight to
more recent performance, known as recency effects, and various attribution errors, including
the actor–observer bias. The latter may lead an appraiser to place greater emphasis on
dispositional factors and lesser emphasis on situational factors that may have affected
performance.
In addition to one’s in role job performance, employees are also evaluated on their
organizational citizenship behaviors (going above and beyond) and counterproductive work
behaviors (CWB) which are deviant behaviors that are harmful to an employee’s organization
such as stealing, vandalism, sabotage, harassment of coworkers, deliberately missing work,
and using drugs or alcohol on the job
A good performance appraisal consists of two parts: the performance assessment and
performance feedback. The feedback should occur in a face-to-face situation in which the
supervisor provides constructive information, encouragement, and guidelines for the
improvement of the worker’s future performance.
Because performance appraisals are important to the worker’s livelihood and career
advancement, there are considerable legal overtones to the appraisal process. Performance
appraisals must be valid procedures, resulting from job analysis, that do not unfairly
discriminate against any group of workers.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Define performance appraisals and their purposes in work organizations.

Describe issues involved in the measurement of job performance, including the development
of performance criteria.

Discuss various sources of performance ratings, and their respective advantages and
disadvantages.

Discuss the benefits and costs associated with 360-degree feedback.

Discuss various methods of rating performance, and their respective advantages and
disadvantages.

Discuss the various problems and pitfalls involved in the performance appraisal process.

Discuss the influence of civil rights legislation on the use of performance appraisals.
Discuss the need for performance appraisals systems that consider work teams.

Employee Training and Development

Employee training is a planned effort by an organization to facilitate the learning, retention, and
transfer of job-related behavior. Training is not limited to new employees, but often involves
various types of training and development programs offered throughout an employee’s career.
Specific areas of employee training include new employee orientation; employee retraining and
continuing education; retirement planning and career development; and worker training for
international assignments, for diversity, to reduce sexual harassment, and to increase ethical
behavior at work.
An understanding of learning theories is fundamental in the design of employee training
programs. For example, the concept of modeling, which is imitative of learning, is expressed in
social learning theory. If training programs are to be successful, a number of key issues will
affect their effectiveness. For example, transfer of training, or how the learning translates into use
of the newly learned behaviors, and the job characteristics of the trainees, such as trainee
readiness, must be taken into account. Finally, concern must be given to how training programs
are structured and how they are conducted.
The first step in a successful employee training program is assessing training needs, which occurs
on several levels. Organizational analysis considers the organization’s goals, resources, and the
climate for training; task analysis evaluates the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities that a job
requires; and person analysis examines the capabilities and deficiencies of the workers
themselves. Training needs may also have to be conducted through demographic analysis, which
is targeted toward assessing the training needs of specific groups, such as males versus females
or the old versus the young. The second step involves establishing training objectives, whereas
the third step focuses on employee training methods. The various training methods can be broken
down into two general categories: onsite methods and offsite methods. Of onsite methods, on-
the-job training is the most widely used, consisting of putting inexperienced workers into the
work site under the direction of an experienced teacher-worker. Apprenticeship is a much more
long-term onsite method, combining classroom training with supervised on-the-job training.
Vestibule training sets up a model training area adjacent to the actual work site, using
professional trainers and hands-on experience. Job rotation is a training technique designed to
broaden workers’ experience by rotating employees among various jobs.
Off-site methods include the common seminar method and audiovisual instruction that provides
graphic depictions of work activities and Web-based training (webinars). A technique that uses
aspects of both audiovisual technology and concepts of social learning theory is behavior
modeling training, a method of exposing trainees to videotapes of models engaged in appropriate
work behaviors and then having them practice the observed behaviors. Simulation techniques
involve classroom replications of actual workstations. Programmed instruction is a form of self-
paced training in which workers can learn at their own pace. A sophisticated version of
programmed instruction is computer-assisted instruction (CAI).
Several specific methods and techniques used in management training include problem-solving
case studies, role-playing, and management games, which all involve simulations of actual
management situations. Action learning is a complicated form of training in which teams are
formed to perform a special project or assignment that benefits the organization, while the team
members learn and develop managerial skills. A 360-degree feedback is also used as a
management development tool. Mentoring is a management training program in which an
inexperienced worker is assigned to an experienced mentor who serves as a role model. Coaching
is where a consultant advises an executive to improve performance.
Once training programs have been implemented, the evaluation of their effectiveness is very
important. The first step in evaluation is to determine criteria of training effectiveness. Four types
are typically used: reaction criteria, learning criteria, behavioral criteria, and results criteria. Once
the criteria are established, basic research methods and design should be used to evaluate the
training programs. The pretest–posttest design is a common but inadequate means of assessing a
program in which measures of criteria are collected both before and after a training intervention,
allowing for a comparison of changes in learning or work behaviors. However, this method is
inadequate because of the lack of a good comparison group. Better evaluation designs use both a
training group and a comparison, or control, group that is not subjected to the training program.
A complex and sophisticated evaluation design is the Solomon four-group design, which uses
two training groups and two control groups.
Finally, certain legal issues must be considered in the design and implementation of training
programs. Training or educational prerequisites and the training programs themselves must not
unfairly discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Describe the various areas of employee training.

Describe social learning theory and cognitive theories of learning.

Discuss the key issues in the development of employee training programs, including transfer
of training, trainee readiness, and training program structure.

Discuss the assessment of training needs.

Describe the various employee training methods, including management training techniques,
and their respective advantages and disadvantages.

Describe the specific focuses of employee training programs.

Discuss the evaluation of employee training programs.

Discuss the influence of equal opportunity employment issues in the development of training
programs.