Problems of Rating in Performance Appraisal

The destiny of any organisation is correlated with the performance of the people who form an of an inseparable part of it. The question of its prospect, growth and its very survival revolve around it. Thus an appropriate mechanism needs to be evolved and built into the system towards a sound and objective performance appraisal. The appraisers or raters are specialists from the Human Resource Department and their tasks are quite unenviable in the light of experience.

In real life no system of appraisal is free from one deficiency or other but some of the fairly common ones may be examined. The cases of appraisers rating with severity or leniency are not uncommon. An appraisal suffers from this kind of deficiency when the appraisers are subjectively influenced by the impact of their decisions. It is also possible for an appraiser to be severe in his assessment of performance of a person by factors which are completely unrelated to actual performance, for instance engagement with trade union activity. The cases of leniency are just the opposite. His display of leniency could be guided by some subjective factors.

There are also cases when the appraisers tend to play safe in their jobs, a characteristic known as central tendency. The appraisers' own doubts and anxieties may breed this safe-playing attitude and use such expressions as “satisfactory” or “average” in rating performance.

Cases of “Halo Error” form another kind of errors. This kind of error belongs to an interesting category and the appraisers attach greater importance and weightage to one aspect of a person's performance. For example, a habitual late comer who ranks high in productivity gets a higher rating or a person putting in a stray exceptional performance continues to enjoy the favour of the appraiser for a long time.

There are other kinds of errors like primacy and recency effects in which either the performance in the earlier stages or later stages of the rating period influences the behaviour of the appraisers. Added to these errors are the appraisers' cultural background and beliefs etc. which too might subjectively influence an appraisal.