Page 193 - DCOM102_DMGT101_PRINCIPLES_AND_PRACTICES_OF_MANAGEMENT

Unit 11: Performance Appraisal and Career Strategy

11.3 Traditional Methods of Performance Appraisal Notes

Different methods of performance appraisal are followed in different organisations to achieve
the above objectives. Since some methods of performance appraisal are complicated and call for
adequate knowledge in quantitative techniques, many organisations follow traditional methods
of appraisal while others consider modern methods as the basis for evaluating job performance
of their employees. Traditional methods of performance appraisal are discussed in subsequent
subsections.

Straight Ranking Method

This is the oldest and simplest method of performance appraisal by which employees are tested
in order or merit giving some numerical rank and placed in a simple grouping. Such grouping
separates employees under each level of efficiency, which may vary from most efficient to least
efficient. Since, it is a blunt quantification of performance, it does not account for behavioural
parameters and only considers an individual employee’s level of efficiency in relation to others.
For such obvious deficiency, this system does not provide scientific basis for performance
appraisal of employees.
Paired Comparison Techniques

This is a somewhat better method of performance appraisal as each employee is compared with
others in pairs at a time. For each performance trait, an individual employee’s performance is
tallied with others in pairs and then rank order is decided. This system is also not suitable in
those cases where the number of employees are usually high. For better comprehension, a
sample table of comparison on trait reliability is presented below:
Table 11.1

As Compared To A B C D E
A X - - - -
B X + - + -
C + - X _ -
D + - + X -
E + + - + X

Man-to-Man Comparison

Under this method certain factors are selected for analysis, like; leadership, initiative, interpersonal
relationship, etc., and a scale is designed by a rater for each such factor. After rating such factors
individually and accordingly, the aggregate performance of an individual employee is decided
and such aggregative performance is also given a scale. Likewise an individual employee is
considered with others. This method is somewhat like factor comparison method and is widely
used in job evaluation. Since developing a uniform rating scale is a complicated task, this factor
is not much in use in practice for performance appraisal of employees by organisations.

Grading Method

Under this method certain features, which help in understanding the performance of an employee
are identified. Such features may be leadership, communication power, analytic ability, job

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