Performing a quality performance evaluation is a key component to the success of any business situation.  These are excellent tools that enable supervisors to appropriately evaluate the work that employees are producing and in the manner in which the work is produced.  For instance, an employee’s attitude, organization and attention to detail are common focuses for effective performance evaluations.  Although a strong performance evaluation can effectively communicate an employee’s strengths and areas of opportunity, a poor performance evaluation can easily cause problems in the workplace and create an uncomfortable situation that is not only unproductive but can be highly detrimental to the success of the organization, the team and the employee.  Within the example of the experienced engineer at the mid-size manufacturing plant, it is clear that the performance evaluations are not only beneficial for the supervisor and employee, but they have created hostility in the workplace and do not evaluate the employee on appropriate criteria to assess his performance on the job.

The current evaluation form for the organization has several major pitfalls that should be addressed in order to improve the evaluation effectiveness for this situation.  First of all, the evaluation form does not currently appear to have a set formula of standards for properly evaluating the quality of the work.  The employee is frustrated that the current supervisor and supervisory staff do not have enough knowledge to properly evaluate an engineer’s work.  This can be validated because the current form only rates whether the work was completed well or not; it does not ask specific rating questions to determine areas of strength and opportunity for the employee.  Secondly, the current evaluation form includes a natural bias that has been built into the form and is clearly present given this situation.  The form is based largely on the supervisor’s opinion and personal observations without providing clear examples of the problems that exist.  For instance, the employee’s attitude is questioned and the neatness of his desk is two of the greatest areas of opportunity.  However, the form does not take into consideration the current relations that exist that have impacted the employee’s attitude from his co-workers playing jokes on him.  The form does not concentrate on the employee’s organization; instead, it merely concentrates on neatness which is a completely separate concept. Currently, the form is very ineffective because it does not accurately gauge the employee’s work ethic; it concentrates more on aesthetics and personal relationship with co-workers than production.

Oftentimes there are several types of bias that exist in the implementation of performance evaluation forms.  There is often a personal bias associated with the performance evaluation whereby an inherent conflict may exist between the supervisor and employee and is directly represented within the performance evaluation.  This type of personal bias is very common and must be removed to eliminate the ineffectiveness of the employee’s evaluation.  In addition, many performance evaluations for individual employees appear to maintain a significant pattern or trend.  If an employee performs well and is rated well, the following evaluation will likely present the same results.  On the other hand, if an employee performs poorly and is rated poorly but improves in the time between evaluations, many of the subsequent evaluations will still present a poor evaluation.  This error in the performance evaluations is known as the Matthew Effect (“Performance Appraisal”).  A final error or bias in the implementation of performance evaluations comes from ineffective follow-through.  Too many supervisors utilize performance evaluations out of a requirement by human resources and fail to follow through with what has been discussed personally between the supervisor and employee during the official evaluation meeting.  This suggests to the employee that the evaluation is not important and is a false requirement with no real meaning behind it.  Employees and supervisors need to understand the importance of this process for increasing productive and efficiency through describing areas of employee opportunity.