Conducting a traditional performance review is emotionally difficult for both the evaluator and the employee. Evaluation is always limited by the perceptions, cognitive biases, past experiences, temperament, and personality of both individuals. Even the language in which the evaluation is formulated is limited; every thought is full of omissions, simplifications, and generalizations.
Common pitfalls in drawing conclusions from traditional employee evaluation systems – what should you watch out for?
One of the consequences of using the WinWinBalance app to track employee behavior is a performance evaluation (employee assessment).
None of us sees reality objectively. Everything we observe is distorted in some way. Our beliefs can cause two people watching the same game to assess the “fairness” of the teams’ play in completely different ways, depending on which team they support. Errors made in traditional assessments can also distort the recording of behavior, so it’s worth familiarizing yourself with them and keeping them in mind when recording employee behavior.
The Most Common Mistakes in Traditional Employee Evaluations
Being aware of the most common mistakes and issues that can arise during the review process can help you avoid them.
1. Projection – attributing to an employee a trait that we ourselves possess (or think we possess). If a supervisor often berates themselves for being lazy, they may see “lazy people” everywhere. We can recognize projection by the strong emotional reactions a person’s behavior triggers in us, or simply by the aversion we feel toward them.
2. The halo effect— we tend to judge people based on their appearance. If someone is dressed in an elegant suit and is also handsome, they can expect a lighter sentence in court than their less attractive cellmate. By the same token, at the opposite end of this spectrum, someone may be highly competent, but if they’re dressed sloppily, they won’t come across as professional or hardworking (even though, logically speaking, the two may have nothing to do with each other).
3. Personal rapport – our “liking” of a particular person also influences our judgment. It often happens that a young employee projects feelings onto their supervisor, viewing them as a father or older brother. This dynamic works both ways. Consequently, our evaluation may become either too harsh or too lenient. Homans’ Law: the closer the relationship between the evaluator and the evaluated, the higher the evaluation.
4. Stereotypes and biases – A stereotype is a strong belief about a particular group of people or things. If one of our employees is a sports fan, and we have strong, negative associations with sports fans, we may tend to notice and interpret behaviors in a way that confirms that belief.
5. From the specific to the general – If an employee struggles with one type of task, we can extend our assessment of their skills and performance to other tasks by attributing to them a certain fixed trait of incompetence or exceptional ability (if they performed exceptionally well on one task).
6. The self-fulfilling prophecy – A phenomenon in which we have certain expectations of an employee and unconsciously give more recognition and helpful feedback to those we believe have “greater potential.” The employee sees this, feels it, and becomes more confident in their abilities; they are motivated and feel secure. As a result, they perform the tasks assigned to them better. The same principle works in the opposite direction as well.
7. The similarity effect – If we have previously worked with someone who had certain physical or personality traits and, over time, formed a negative opinion of them, we may mistakenly assume that someone similar to them (physically or in personality) will behave in exactly the same way. This is a prelude to the mechanism described above (the self-fulfilling prophecy).
8. The recency effect – Evaluating an employee based on their most recent performance. Example: An employee works hard and is punctual; throughout the year, they have almost never been late. In recent weeks, however, they have been dealing with personal issues. When conducting an evaluation, we tend to generalize based on their most recent behavior. Many of the more astute and less committed employees only try harder in the period leading up to performance reviews. That is why it is crucial to replace performance reviews with systematic and frequent recording of behavior.
9. Judgments clouded by emotion – when we’re overwhelmed by emotions, we lose our ability to make rational and accurate judgments. That’s why it’s so important to draw conclusions and provide feedback with a clear head.
10. The fundamental attribution error— this involves explaining another person’s behavior by attributing it to their personality traits, without taking the situational context into account.
There are many other mechanisms and cognitive biases that affect the accuracy and reliability of traditional employee evaluations. In this article, however, we have chosen to focus only on the most common ones.
Bibliography:
Developing Modern Employee Evaluation Systems – Małgorzata Sidor-Rządkowska
Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
