Performance Appraisals in Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Performance appraisal is one of many topics within the field of both industrial and organizational psychology. There is a reason to believe that a systematic approach to providing employees effective feedback is a mechanism that will work in improving working performance, expectations of workers and the overall potential of the workforce. Proponents of performance appraisal systems note that most of the techniques within the concept of performance appraisal are reliable and efficient, while critics of performance appraisal systems often state that the system does not convince employees to do better, but instead allows for a more difficult staff to manage. 

Performance appraisal development has four phases: technical, extended, appraisal and maintenance. The appraisal system is considered to be one of the indicators that human resource managers utilize to understand and ascertain employee performance. It is a viable function as it aids in providing employees the necessary training if needed; supports a plausible selection process in new hires; allows organizations to determine whether employees can be promoted or transferred and aids in compensation decisions. There are myriad of other factors associated with the performance appraisal system that allows it to a successful technique within corporations and companies. Within performance appraisal systems that are what are known as objective and subjective measures. Objective measures can be quantified in terms of data, whereas subjective relies on non-quantifiable data. Most literature has classified performance appraisal into two distinct areas: modern methodologies and traditional techniques. The traditional methods speak to the personal attributes of employees; while modern methodologies are more of an attempt to improve behavior and any applications of shortcomings (Aggarwal & Thakur, 2013). Proponents of performance appraisal, by and large, accept the supposition that techniques such as ranking, 360 Degree, the Graphic Rating Scales, and the 720 Degree techniques are measures in keeping organizations running as smoothly and effectively as they possibly can. 

Critics of performance appraisals find that they are very subjective thereby allowing managers and supervisors to have bias and favoritism for certain workers over others, without giving thought to organizational coaching as a whole. This makes for a tedious process of ensuring that performance appraisals are viable due to the ethical issues of nepotism, favoritism, and bias, which can make for poor performance by employees and potential problems with lawsuits if it is proven that certain employees were given promotions based on merits other than work. Most if not all measures associated with industrial and organizational psychology has both strengths and weaknesses. The onus is to understand the best approach to identifying what works within an organization and embracing that technique wholeheartedly until proven otherwise. Literature has mostly praised performance appraisal systems. There is a nominal amount of articles and studies done on the disadvantages of performance appraisal because the aforementioned techniques have been evaluated and proven to be successful in all areas of work. Based on the effectiveness of performance appraisal systems as in evaluations done in studies by Stalz, Marmora, Atiomo and Akingboa it stands to reason that performance appraisal, while not a means to an end, is a plausible system for businesses to both implement and use (Obisi, 2011).

The key is for companies and corporations to understand the best techniques that work for their particular employees. Upper management and HR departments have a variety of techniques to choose from. The powers that be at companies and corporations must take into account how their workforce will respond to certain performance appraisals techniques and they can do that based on literature within the industrial and organizational psychology fields. 

References

Aggarwal, A., & Thakur, G. S. (2013, February). Techniques of performance appraisal-A review. International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology, 2(3), 617-621.

Obisi, C. (2011, December). EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL AND ITS IMPLICATION FOR INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL GROWTH. Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, 1(9), 92-97.