Traditional Appraisal Techniques that Lead to Dysfunctional Behaviors - Essay Example

Traditional appraisal techniques lead to dysfunctional behaviors Introduction One of the basic components of management in an organization is handling its basic resources such as money, materials, and manpower. The most crucial of which is assessing how the system is working as far as its "humanware" is concerned. This leads to the creation of the performance appraisal systems in every organization, private or government, large or small. Performance appraisal can be considered 360-degree feedback on an employee's performance since it is being provided by the supervisor (main rater), co-employees (peer-rater), and external customers (client raters) to the employees concerned or from the employee concerned to the management referred as upward appraisals (Edwards and Ewen, 1996).

Performance appraisals are undertaken to assess the individual, a team, or an organizational unit's progress as far as its function is concerned. They can be based on the personal assessment of the rate based on a prepared rating scale depending on the systems preferred by the management. In the general context, performance evaluation is a good tool to reward and recognize outstanding performances and correct or counsel employees with poor accomplishments (US Department of the Interior, n. d)Traditional appraisal techniques and their effects traditional methods of performance appraisal methods may differ in usability between private and public organizations.

But they have similarities as far as the rating systems are concerned. Old systems use review processes in which the supervisor writes his ratings and opinions of the performance of a subordinate based on a form. In some organizations, the staff member is asked to fill out a self-review to share with the supervisor. In most cases, the appraisal reflects what the rater can remember and is not a comprehensive evaluation. It is based on feelings and can be judgmental in nature (Dulewicz, 1989)Considering that humans have emotions, traditional assessment techniques and even some present methods are mostly ceremonial rather than a thorough assessment of the personnel's output, efficiency, or effectiveness.

Although there are several techniques that came out that really measures diligently the personnel outputs, the majority of assessment tools do otherwise which could have led to dysfunctional behaviors. Dysfunctional behaviors as a result of the traditional appraisal techniques are mostly found in government bureaucracy and seldom found in private companies that strive for profit. Unwanted behaviors in the workplace as a result of traditional judgmental, personal assessment include insubordination, poor relations, criticism, and sometimes rebelliousness.

In government bureaucracy, a lenient performance system will lead to low quality and poor performance, discourage excellence, and promotes deliberate neglect of duties and responsibilities. Although these negative cases are real in the workplace there are some situations that a serious implementation of these traditional systems and most of the modern systems may lead to better performance if the appraisal is linked to a reliable reward system (Banister and Balkin, 1990) like promotion, monetary reward, and other forms of personal remuneration.