Traditional Methods/ Techniques of Performance Appraisal

1. Essay appraisal: The appraiser is asked to write an essay on the employee’s strengths,
weaknesses, performance and potentials; it is an evaluation of the performance of any
individual based on the facts and often includes supporting examples and evidences. This
technique is a simple and formal method of appraisal. The biggest drawback in this method is
that it is difficult to combine and compare the essays as it may touch upon various aspects of
one’s performance and qualifications. Other drawbacks are the variability of length and content
in the essays, inseparability of the bias of the appraiser.
2. Graphic rating scale: An employee’s quality and quantity of work is assessed in a graphic
scale. A variety of factors are taken into consideration including his/her job performance,
personal traits like cooperation and reliability. For example a trait like Job Knowledge may be
judged on the range of average, above average, outstanding or unsatisfactory. Although the
graphic scale is widely used, it is under frequent controversy. But the graphic scale is more
economical to develop and it is not complicated. Therefore it is easily acceptable by appraisers.
3. Forced choice rating: This technique is unbiased in comparison to other techniques. This also
does not involve the intervention of a third party in appraisal. In this method, the appraisers are
asked to choose from among groups of statements those that best fit the individual employee
who is rated and those that least fit him/her. The statements are then weighed and scored the
same way psychological tests are scored. This technique is limited to lower and middle
management levels in companies as the levels of jobs are similar to make standard common
forms with this group.
4. Field review: The field review is a group judgement technique and it tends to be fairer and
more valid than individual ratings. Here a member of the personnel department meets with
small groups of appraisers from each supervisory unit and goes over each employee’s ratings
with them. In this way, each appraiser conceives uniform standards, arrives at group consensus
and identify areas of disagreement between appraisers. But it is time consuming and arduous.
But this method helps to reduce a single superiors’ personal bias.
5. Critical incident appraisal: This technique is appreciated by many employees and employers
because it is natural and gives a supervisor actual factual incidents to discuss with the
employee. In this method, supervisors are asked to keep a record on each employee and to
record actual, critical incidents of positive and negative behaviour. The discussion between the
supervisor and his subordinate deals with actual behaviour and not on traits. Here the
performance of the employee and not his personality gets criticized. The employee will
specifically get to know how to perform differently if he wants to be rated higher the next time.
The drawback of this method is that the supervisor has to note down the critical incidents and
the employee behaviour as and when they occur.
6. Work standards approach: In this technique the organizations set the daily work standards for
the employees instead of asking the employees to set their own performance goals. This
technique aims at improving productivity and makes possible an accurate and objective
appraisal of work of employees and supervisors. Considerable amount of time is spent on
observing the employees on the job, simplifying and improving the job where possible and
arriving at realistic output standards. Different people are evaluated differently and it becomes
difficult to rate them for comparison especially at the time of deciding promotions and salary
increase.
7. Ranking methods: This method is useful when it becomes necessary to compare people who
work for different supervisors, when there are several individual ratings an when appraisal
forms are not particularly useful. This method is also employed to compare people in different
units of an organization.
8. Assessment centers: In assessment centers, the assessment for future performance or potential
of the employee is assessed in contrast to the past performance. Individuals from different
 departments are brought together and they spend two to three working days on group
assignments similar to ones they will be handling if they were promoted. The pooled judgement
of the observers leads to order of merit ranking on the participants.
9. Checklist method: The appraiser is given a checklist of the descriptions of the behaviour of the
employees on job. The checklist contains a list of statements on the basis of which the appraiser
describes the on the job performance of the employees.
10. Forced distribution: To eliminate the element of bias from the appraiser’s ratings, the
evaluator is asked to distribute the employees in some fixed categories of ratings like on a
normal distribution curve. The appraiser chooses the appropriate fit for the categories on his
own discretion.