Page 62 - DMGT517_PERFORMANCE_MANAGEMENT_SYSTEM

Unit 5: Performance Appraisal

5.3 Approaches of Performance Appraisal Notes

George Odiorne has identified four basic approaches to performance appraisal.

1. Personality-based systems: In such systems the appraisal form consists of a list of
personality traits that presumably are significant in the jobs of the individuals being

appraised. Such traits as initiative, drive, intelligence, ingenuity, creativity, loyalty and
trustworthiness appear on most such lists.
2. Generalized descriptive systems: Similar to personality-based systems, they differ in the
type of descriptive term used. Often they include qualities or actions of presumably good
managers: “organizes, plans, controls, motivates others, delegates, communicates, makes
things happen,” and so on. Such a system, like the personality-based system, might be

useful if meticulous care were taken to define the meaning of each term in respect to actual
results.
3. Behavioral descriptive systems: Such systems feature detailed job analysis and job

descriptions, including specific statements of the actual behavior required from successfully
employees.
4. Result-centered systems: These appraisal systems (sometime called work-centered or
job-centered systems) are directly job related.

They require that manager and subordinate sit down at the start of each work evaluation period
and determine the work to be done in all areas of responsibility and functions, and the specifi c
standards of performance to be used in each area.

When introducing performance appraisal a job description in the form of a questionnaire has
to be preferred. A typical questionnaire addressed to an individual would cover the following
points:
1. What is your job title?
2. To whom are you responsible?
3. Who is responsible to you?
4. What is the main purpose what are your main areas of responsibility?

5. What is the size of your job in such terms of output or sales targets, number of items
processed, number of people managed, number of customers? What targets or standards of
performance have been assigned for your job? Are there any other ways in which it would
be possible to measure the effectiveness with which you carry out your job?
6. Is there any other information you can provide about your job?

TCS Asks 1,300 Employees to Leave

round 1,300 employees of Tata Consultancy Services will resign from the company
following a routine bi-annual performance appraisal. The employees being asked
Ato leave will constitute around one per cent of the total staff, numbering over
1,30,000, said a spokesperson for the company.
Their leaving the company is not part of any cost-cutting exercise designed to cope with
the economic slowdown, she said. TCS’ bi-annual performance appraisal throws up under-
performers who are given special training; but if they are not up to the mark in the next
appraisal, they are asked to leave.
Contd...

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