1. What do you think of the boss’s ratings and his defense of them?
The boss’s evaluation is not good and fair for Sandy. And it is not helpful for Sandy to improve.
Rating against a standard permits a supervisor to classify employee performance independently from that of other employees. Both supervisor and employee have a reference point for accurately looking at an employee’s long-term performance growth.
Ratings against a standard do not preclude comparisons. While employees may typically compare themselves to others, there is little to be gained by having the organization promote such comparisons. They are likely to create envy, vanity and dysfunctional competition. In this case, boss lets Sandy to compare with Charlie. It may create envy, vanity and dysfunctional competition. In a healthy organization, one employee’s success need not mean another’s failure. If all can succeed, much the better.
Those who prefer an absolute standard tend to give lower scores to employees, as they fear new workers who receive high marks will not feel the need for further improvement. In contrast, raters who feel a worker has done superior work considering his time in the position, may rate him as such. An evaluation six months or a year later yielding a superior mark would require a corresponding improvement on the part of the worker. I prefer the latter approach, because it seems more positive.
Supervisory evaluations often suffer from rating deficiencies:
• One particularly good or poor trait may contaminate other performance areas considered in the evaluation. In this case, the boss rate Sandy as average. He figures out the poor trait during the evaluation period. Sandy drops the dishes. So he gives Sandy average. It is not helpful Sandy to improve in the further.
• Once a worker is classified as a poor performer, it may take a long time for a supervisor to notice