Performance Management - Common Rating Errors

To be truly objective writing a performance review, you must look at the individual employee’s performance behaviour and rate accordingly. Watch for these common rating errors.

Contrast effect – The tendency of a rater to evaluate people in comparison with other individuals rather than against the standards for the job. Of the five managers with objectives to reduce turnover by 10%, four of them reduced it by 20%, yet one receives a Below Target because they reduced turnover by 10%.

Halo/Horns Effect – Inappropriate generalizations from one aspect of an individual’s performance to all areas of that person’s performance. Rating an Above Target to a manager who is great at a specific operational task yet has difficulties coaching their direct reports.

Similar-to-Me Effect – The tendency of individuals to rate people who resemble themselves more highly than they rate others. Rating a Below Target to a manager who is an effective recruiter yet who style of recruiting is not your preference.

Recency Effect – The tendency of minor events that have happened recently to have more influence on the rating than major events of many months ago. Rating Above Target to a manager who in the past month did a great job organizing the back room who had performance problems earlier in the year.

Central Tendency – Generally occurs when we choose to give all employees similar ratings rather than thinking about them as individuals and giving them realistic ratings focused on their own performance. Rating all managers On Target for their people objective even though one manager clearly leads to team in developing people.

Considerations When Assigning Ratings

- Whether or not the results were accomplished in the set time frame.

- The extent to which the result met or exceeded the standards of performance (Did the performance exceed expectations in only a few areas, or across of the board?)

- The relative importance of each of the objectives within the category.

- Obstacles that impeded performance. There may have been a circumstance in which an employee was on track for accomplishing the objective until some unforeseen and uncontrollable event occurred. If this was the case, you may choose to not lower the employee’s rating substantially.

- Were contributions made to the organization in a way that met your expectations?

- Would performance at a lower level have been acceptable?

- As a manager, is your judgement clouded because the employee may have achieved results using a different style or method that might have?