REA: Performance Appraisal & Workplace Performance

Performance Appraisal & Workplace Performance

CIPD, Applied Research Conference 19 December 2016, London

Postgraduate Course

Postgraduate Course

CEBMa: what we do

Promote (seminars, papers, blogs, tweets)

Educate (universities & business schools)

Train & coach (companies > projects)

Conduct (and teach) REAs

EBP: what is it?

Evidence-based practiceCentral Premise:

Decisions should be based on the ‘best available evidence‘.

Best available = critically evaluated evidence

from multiple sources

EBP: what is it?

Evidence?

information, facts or data supporting (or contradicting) a claim, assumption or hypothesis

Sources of evidence

problem solution

Practitionersprofessional expertise

Organization internal data

Stakeholdersvalues and concerns

Scientific literature empirical studies

AskAcquire

AppraiseAggregate

ApplyAssess

Claims

Claims

Claims

Claims

Claims

Sources of evidence

problem solution

Practitionersprofessional expertise

Organization internal data

Stakeholdersvalues and concerns

Scientific literature empirical studies

AskAcquire

AppraiseAggregate

ApplyAssess

ABI/INFORM: more than 5,000 publications

(BTW, most of it is crap)

Problem 1: volume

Problem 2: incomprehensible

Problem 3

It depends …

GREAT! NOW WHAT?

We need evidence summaries!

Systematic Review (SR)

The agreed-upon standard approach to scientific evidence assessment across fields as diverse as medicine, education, criminal justice etc. and follows a transparent structured methodology for reviewing an entire body of relevant research evidence

Rapid Evidence Assessment (SR light)

Searching: consulting a limited number of databases, and excluding unpublished research. Sometimes an REA may be limited to only meta-analyses or controlled studies.

Data Extraction: only extracting a limited amount of key data, such as year, population, sector, sample size, moderators/mediators, main findings, and effect size.

Critical Appraisal: limiting quality appraisal to methodological appropriateness and methodological flaws.

We need evidence summaries!

Step 1: ASK

What is known in the scientific literature about the impact of performance appraisal on workplace performance?

1. What is performance appraisal?2. How is it supposed to work?3. What is the effect on workplace performance?4. What is known about possible moderators and/or mediators5. What is known about the reliability and validity?

Step 2: ACQUIRE

Search for the best available scientific evidence

ABI, BSP, PsycINFO

Scholarly journals, peer reviewed

English, scholarly journals, peer-reviewed

1980 to 2016 for meta-analyses; 2000 to 2016 for primary studies

Key words: performance appraisal, performance review, performance evaluation, annual review, and employee evaluation.

Step 2: ACQUIRE

step 3: APPRAISE

step 3: APPRAISE

Oh, and we never look at the p-value, only at the effect sizes

Q1: What is it?

‘An evaluation process in which quantitative scores based on pre-determined criteria are assigned and shared with the employee being evaluated’ (e.g. DeNisi & Pritchard, 2006)

Q2: How does it work?

Social comparison theory: individuals tend to compare themselves with others in order to make judgments

regarding their performance.

They are concerned not only about their performance in an absolute sense, but also about how they measure up in

relation to relevant peers.

Q2: how is it supposed to work?

Feedback intervention theory: suggests that when confronted with a discrepancy between what they wish to achieve and the feedback received, individuals are strongly

motivated to attain a higher level of performance

Q3: Does it work?

Q4: Moderators and mediators?

Q4: Moderators and mediators?

1. Reactions to feedback, rather than the feedback itself, influence performance (level A)

2. The perceived fairness of the performance appraisal process has a medium to large moderating effect on future performance (level A)

3. Negative feedback adversely affects perceived fairness (level C*), whereas feedback that focusses only on positive aspects has a medium positive effect on both perceived fairness and overall job performance (level A*)

4. Participation has a medium to large moderating effect on perceived fairness (level B).

5. The quality of the relationship between manager and employee has a substantial moderating effect on the perceived fairness of the performance appraisal (level B)

Q5: Reliability & validity?

Q5: Rater centric errors

1. Employees’ contextual performance has a large positive effect on job performance ratings (level A).

2. Managers’ implicit person theory regarding the malleability of personal attributes has a large effect on how they rate their employees (level A).

3. Rater training has medium to large positive effects on rating accuracy (level A).

4. The outcome of managers’ own performance appraisal has a large effect on the way in which they evaluate their employees (level A).

5. Male employees who experience a conflict between family and work receive lower performance ratings (level A)

Q5: Ratee centric errors

1. Employees’ tactics for influencing raters such as ingratiation or self-promotion have a moderate effect on performance ratings (level C).

2. Employees’ organizational citizenship behaviour has a moderate to large positive effect on performance ratings (level A).

3. Employees’ political skills have a small positive effect on performance ratings (level C).

Q5: System centric errors

1. The purpose of the performance (administrative vs developmental) moderates the performance rating (level A).

2. The reliability of individual performance measures depends on the type of measurement, the source of measurement and the level of job complexity (level A/B).

3. Accountability substantially affects both rating outcomes and rating accuracy (level A).

Step 4: Synthesize

Step 5: Apply

Reactions

Who knew?