Performance evaluation plays a fundamental role in business success, it is used as a tool for feedback from the evaluated of their potentialities and difficulties as well as their involvement in the results of the organization, a good ED technique, combined with a good team evaluator guarantees the successful performance of the worker as well as increases the competitiveness of the company
In the new era where Human Resources plays such a definitive role in Business Management, organizations give human resources administration a leading role within their management. The definition of multipurpose jobs, planning of needs, recruitment and selection of personnel, organizational socialization, employee rotation, promotions, training and development plans, compensation, safety plans and health, salary and salary administration, as well as performance evaluation, are key factors when managing human talent in an organization that wants to be competitive.
The Human Resources Administration (HRM) is an interdisciplinary area: It protects definitions of industrial and organizational psychology, of Labor Law, of Cybernetics, etc. It consists of planning, organizing, developing and coordinating and controlling techniques capable of promoting the efficient performance of personnel, while the organization represents the means that allows people to collaborate in achieving the objectives. individual objectives directly or indirectly related to work. ARH means conquering and keeping people in the organization, working and giving their best with a positive and favorable attitude (Chiavenato 1990).
Among the techniques capable of promoting the efficient performance of personnel is performance evaluation, which consists of measuring the performance of an individual in his position taking into account the factors and level of demand that he has, in addition to recognizing which are its main sources of development and gives way to how to take better advantage of them, there are innumerable methods and techniques to evaluate performance, each of them with specific characteristics and features that make it different from the others, within the objectives of this work is to do mention the types of techniques that exist, how to group them, see the advantages that one has over another, as well as compare them with each other.
DEVELOPING
1. Different techniques to evaluate performance. Main features.
The importance of performance evaluation has led to the creation of many methods to judge the way the employee carries out his work, based on the results he has achieved before the evaluation, most of the techniques constitute an effort to reduce the drawbacks noted in other approaches.
Within the methods of evaluation based on performance during the past, there are several techniques, such as: scoring scales, checklists, mandatory selection methods, methods of recording notable events, methods benchmarking, behavioral rating scales, field verification methods, category setting, estimation of knowledge and associations, comparative point methods, mandatory distribution methods, and comparison against total methods.
Another qualification that performance evaluation methods have are methods based on future performance, which focus on future performance through the evaluation of the employee's potential, or the establishment of performance objectives, within which we find: self-evaluations, administration by objectives, psychological evaluations, and the methods of the evaluation centers.
Scoring scales:
It is possibly the oldest and most commonly used method in performance evaluation, it is where the evaluator must grant a subjective evaluation to the employee's performance on a scale that goes from low to high, the evaluation is based solely on the opinion of the person conferring the assessment. In many cases, several of the aspects to be evaluated may not be directly relevant to the position, numerical values are assigned to each point, in order to allow obtaining several computations.
Advantages and disadvantages:
The ease of its development, simplicity when imparting it, the little training of the evaluators to administer the method and the possibility of application to large groups of employees, constitute advantages of these methods. But it has some disadvantages such as the emergence of involuntary distortions in the subjective instrument of this type, the elimination of specific aspects of job performance, the achievement of the evaluation of groups of positions of various types, with the elimination of specific performance parameters and others.
Checklists:
This method requires that the person who gives the rating select sentences that describe the performance of the employee and their characteristics, in this case also the evaluator is usually the immediate supervisor, and regardless of their opinion and sometimes without their knowledge, the personnel department assigns Scores to the different points of the checklist, according to the importance of each one, this is called a checklist with values, which allow quantification, to obtain total scores. Despite the fact that the method is practical and standardized, the use of general statements reduces the degree of relation it has to the specific position.
Advantages and disadvantages:
In the case of checklists, their economy, ease of administration, the scant training required by evaluators for their application, as well as their standardization, are considered as advantages. In the case of disadvantages, there is the possibility of distortions (due to subjective opinions about the employee), wrong interpretation of some points, assignment of inappropriate values by the personnel department as well as the impossibility of granting relative scores.
The mandatory selection method:
This forces the evaluator to select the most descriptive phrase of the employee's performance in each pair of statements that he finds, often both expressions are negative or positive, sometimes the evaluator must select the most descriptive statement from groups of three and up to four sentences. Regardless of the occasional variations, the personnel specialists group the points into categories determined in advance, such as learning ability, performance, interpersonal relationships. The degree of effectiveness of the worker in each of these aspects can be computed by adding the number of times that each aspect is selected by the evaluator, the results can illustrate the areas that need improvement.
Advantages and disadvantages: This method reduces the distortions introduced by the evaluator, is easy to apply, adapts to a wide variety of positions and is considered practical and standardizable. The general statements on which it is based may not be specifically related to the position, which may limit its usefulness to help improve performance, considering this element as a disadvantage.
The method of recording notable events:
The evaluator is required to keep a log of the most outstanding actions, due to their positive or negative nature, generally these events are recorded during the evaluation period including their previous explanation.
Advantages and disadvantages: This method is useful for providing feedback to the worker about their performance as well as reducing the distorting effect that recent events have on the memory.
Its disadvantage is that notable events are not always recorded immediately, the principle of constant recording is lost, it is only reinforced at the beginning but then the record is lost and only before the evaluation are new observations added, the The distorting effect of recent events in cases like this, where the employee may conclude that the evaluator only contributes elements to defend a subjective opinion.
The behavioral rating scales:
They use the system of comparison of the employee's performance with certain specific behavioral parameters, with this method the reduction of the elements of distortion and subjectivity is achieved to a greater extent, from acceptable and unacceptable descriptions of performance, from other employees and supervisors., objective parameters are determined that allow performance to be measured.
Advantages and disadvantages: The reduction of the elements of distortion and subjectivity through the design of objective parameters that allow to measure performance constitutes the strongest advantage of this method, and as a disadvantage it should be noted that the method only contemplates a limited number of behavioral elements in order to be effective and of practical administration and that the supervisors do not keep the records updated, due to which the effectiveness of this approach is reduced.
Field verification methods:
In this method, a representative of the personnel department participates in the scores made by the supervisors to the employees, where he requests information about the employee's performance from the immediate supervisor, followed by this the expert prepares an evaluation according to the information received and then sends it. to the supervisor so that he or she can verify it, channel and discuss first with the expert and then with the evaluated one.
Advantages and disadvantages: Increased reliability and comparability with the participation of the specialist is considered advantageous and its cost due to the inclusion of more personnel is considered advantageous, thus making the process more expensive and less practical.
Group evaluation methods:
These can be divided into several methods that have in common the characteristic that they are based on the comparison between the performance of the employee and that of his co-workers, hence the name it carries, these evaluations are conducted by the supervisor, some of the methods contained in this type are:
1-The categorization methods:
They are the ones that lead the evaluator to place employees from better to worse, it is generally known that the performance of employees is different than some outperform others but it is very difficult to quantify this difference, on the scales that are stipulated it is very It is possible that an employee who receives the number 2 is almost equal to the number 1 or much less than it.
2-Forced distribution method:
It is where each evaluator is asked to place their employees in different classifications, although the method requires that some employees receive low evaluations, it is possible that the least favored are considered unfairly evaluated, this method can vary causing the evaluator to award points to their subordinates, this method is known as point distribution.
3-Pairwise comparison method:
The evaluator must compare each employee against all those who are evaluated in the same group, the basis of comparison is generally global performance, the number of times each employee is superior to another can be added, to constitute an index, the employee who is preferred the greatest number of times is the best in the chosen parameter.
Advantages and disadvantages:
· These methods are very useful for making decisions about pay increases based on merit, promotions and distinctions, because they allow the placement of employees from best to worst.
· Reliability.
· The categorization methods are easy to administer and explain.
· In the case of forced distribution methods, the relative differences between employees can be appreciated.
· In the case of pairwise comparison methods, they are considered superior since they overcome the difficulties of the tendency to central measurement and excessive benignity or severity, since some employees should receive a better rating than others.
· Group assessment methods can be distorted by personal biases and recent events, which is a disadvantage.
In the case of evaluation methods based on future performance, some techniques that have already been mentioned above are considered, among which are:
Self-assessments:
In this case, it is important to take employees to carry out a self-evaluation of their performance, since individual development is encouraged, when employees evaluate themselves it is much less likely that defensive attitudes will appear, when these are used to determine the areas they need Getting better are very useful for determining personal goals for the future.
Advantage:
· Self-evaluations can be used with a focus on past or future performance.
· Guarantees high employee participation and dedication to the improvement process.
· It enables the supervisor to provide feedback on what must be done to eliminate obstacles to achieving the performance levels required by the position.
The APO technique:
It consists in that both the supervisor and the employee jointly establish the objectives of the desired performance.
Advantages and disadvantages:
· Motivation of employees to achieve their objectives by having participated in their development.
· Employees can make periodic adjustments to ensure they achieve their goals.
· Regular feedback.
· The employee can measure their progress.
· Specific development needs of the employee can be discussed between the employee and the supervisor.
· The development of overly ambitious or insufficient objectives is usually harmful.
· Employees are not seen as being treated fairly, or in practice too many areas are forgotten.
· When developing objectives that are measured by subjective factors, special attention must be paid to distorting factors that may affect the supervisor's evaluation.
Psychological evaluations:
the potential of the individual is evaluated and not his previous performance, it generally consists of in-depth interviews, talks with supervisors and verification of other evaluations, where the role of the psychologist is used on a specific aspect (suitability of the candidate for a given vacancy), where this can be a global assessment of future potential.
Advantages and disadvantages:
· The result of these evaluations is taken as a pattern for making location and development decisions that make up the employee's professional career.
· It is considered limited, slow, expensive because it is generally applied to young and bright managers.
· The quality of evaluation is very subject to the skill and degree of qualification of the psychologist.
Assessment center methods:
constitutes another method for evaluating future potential, they are a standardized way to evaluate employees, which is based on multiple types of evaluation and multiple evaluators, it is used for intermediate-level management groups that show great potential for development through In the future, potential employees are often referred to a specialist center and undergo individual evaluation. This is done through different techniques such as interviews, psychological tests, study of personal antecedents, round tables, simulation exercises of real working conditions, where they are qualified by a group of evaluators. Experiences of simulation techniques of real-life work conditions generally include exercises in decision-making,business games and other activities.
Advantages and disadvantages:
· High cost in terms of time and money.
· It requires a specialized installation, as well as the presence of several evaluators.
· It requires psychologists and other specialized personnel.
· It requires separating the personnel under evaluation from their functions.
· It is of great importance in large organizations that are in the process of training high-level managers.
· The results are useful for the management process and location decisions.
There are another series of techniques to evaluate performance that many of the authors who work on this subject approach from their own points of view, where the systems are diverse and depend a lot on the organizations themselves, on the characteristics of the evaluated and evaluators, always based on in man's activity at work and not in his personality characteristics. Some of these are the graphic scales (continuous, semi-continuous and discontinuous), which have among their advantages the possibility of an easily understood and simple evaluation instrument of evaluation, they allow a comprehensive and summarized vision of the evaluation factors, they provide little work the evaluator in the evaluation record, simplifying it enormously, among the disadvantages we find the little flexibility of the evaluator,because it must be adjusted to the instrument and not to the characteristics of the evaluated person, they are subject to the halo effect, they tend to routinize the results of the evaluations, they need mathematical and statistical procedures to correct distortions and personal influence of the evaluators.
2. Assessment of the different performance evaluation methods that are addressed in this work, main characteristics.
Among the different methods of performance evaluation there are marked differences, for example the methods focused on performance during the past, deal with something that has already happened, and that consequently can to some extent be measured, in the case of methods based on the Future performance focus on future performance through the evaluation of the employee's potential, or in the establishment of performance objectives, that is, it is based on what will happen, which can be changed at any time according to the achievement of the objectives.
The various techniques that exist on the evaluation of performance, whether they are used on the basis of past performance or those that deal with future performance, have great differences in the evaluation method, the former are generally considered to have subjective characteristics since the state of mind, or the "Halo effect", comes to play its role in these results of, this is mainly due to the subjective characteristics of the method, these focus their attention on performance parameters that are purely qualitative, only in some cases it's not like that.
In the case of future potential evaluation techniques, it is possible to eliminate subjectivity a bit by mixing the evaluated fully in the process from the achievement of the objectives to their fulfillment, where constant feedback plays a fundamental role., and the responsibility of the supervisor is highly important. The climate when conducting the evaluations must be favorable, there are variables such as interpersonal relationships, the characteristics of the evaluator, the type of position and others that may in one way or another prevent the result of the evaluation from being optimal or wanted.
CONCLUSIONS
· Performance evaluation methods based on past performance have a high degree of subjectivity and influence from evaluators.
· Most techniques based on past performance require little training from evaluators, so they are inexpensive and easy to teach.
· These techniques generally have little relation specifically to the position to be evaluated.
· Future performance-based ED methods focus on evaluation against jointly established performance objectives evaluated and evaluators.
· The participation of employees in the development of objectives is essential to achieve a satisfactory evaluation process, and enhance the evaluation of future potential.
· Constant feedback to the evaluated of the results of their work helps to correct the deviations that may occur during their work, a process that helps to correct the actions.
