Performance Evaluation

Case breakdown: Movie Wanted

This particular scene from the movie ‘Wanted’ shows Wesly (played by James McAvoy) as the employee and his boss is bullying him by threatening about the review that’s coming up. She is very annoyed and presses the stapler repeatedly to display her anger, she says she will mark him poor on the various standards such as:

1. Attitude
2. Performance
3. Management skills
4. Works well with others

Performance Evaluation

As the name suggests, performance evaluation is to assess or appraise the performance of an employee of the organization. This is done on the basis of standards set by the company. There are many ways to set effective performance standards.

Many times, generic standards are used. Every year an employee is judged on the basis of the work they have done and accordingly they are given a raise on their current salary. It is usually based on percentage, for e.g. you might be given a 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, etc hike on your salary.  Performance appraisal helps in making these salary and promotion decisions.

This evaluation helps in developing a plan to bridge the gap between what needs to be achieved and what is currently being accomplished. This evaluation helps in aligning with organization’s goal as well. This appraisal helps in career planning purpose too.

There are many techniques to appraise employees such as graphic rating scale method, Alternation ranking method, paired comparison method, forced distribution method, critical incident method, BARS etc.

Graphic Rating Scale:

A graphic rating scale is the most simplest and popular method used for evaluating performance. As this method uses the most generic of standards such as communication, attitude, and team player just as those used by McAvoy’s boss in this particular scene. One needs to be aware of what is being measured i.e. measurement can be based on competencies and objectives.[1]

Ranking Method:

Ranking various employees on a particular attribute from best to worst is the alternation ranking method. for e.g. choosing communication (attribute) and listing the names of employees and ranking them on it. Say Rajesh stands on top in communication, while Tina is in second place and Rohit stands in third place in communication, and so on.

Critical Incident Method:

Under the critical incident method, the manager would keep a tab on both positive and negative instances (critical incidents) of the employee’s work-related behavior. BARS or Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales is a tool that has a numerical rating with instances of both superior and weak performances.

[1] Human Resource Management by Gary Dessler & Biju Varkkey