In your opinion, what are the benefits of keeping performance appraisals confidential? It may be difficult at first, but try to force yourself to think of some! Next, discuss the advantages of sharing the information with the individual subordinate.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

? Confidential performance appraisals have several benefits. The act of sharing
performance appraisal data with employees will likely change employee
behaviour in several ways. First, low-performing employees could be upset and
demoralised. Second, high-performing employees could be resentful if they feel
their pay is not commensurate with performance. Finally, for an organisation that
was interested in alternative means of enhancing performance, exposing the data
to employees would ‘contaminate’ the effect of alternative efforts to enhance
performance, such that the organisation could not know the effect of attempts to
increase performance in any experiments if performance data is also shared with
employees.
? The advantages of sharing the information with the employee are likely to
outweigh the costs. Fundamentally, without feedback, employees do not know
how they are doing. From the perspective of employee motivation and needs,
employees do have needs for accuracy and competence that can be met in part
through timely feedback on their performance. Simply providing feedback can
thus enhance the motivation of even an employee who is already performing well.
For the employee who is not performing well, but is in a complete state of
ignorance about their performance, they will simply not be able to improve
without information on their performance.