List the advantages and disadvantages of using managers, peers, subordinates, self, and customers as sources of performance information.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Managers. Advantages: Supervisors have extensive knowledge of the job requirements and the opportunity to observe their employees; they have an incentive to provide accurate and helpful feedback since their own success depends so much on their employees' performance; and when managers try to observe employee behavior or discuss performance issues in the feedback session, their feedback can improve performance and employees tend to perceive the appraisal as accurate. Disadvantages: In some jobs, the supervisor may not have enough opportunity to observe the employee performing job duties.

Peers. Advantages: Peers are an excellent source of information about performance where the supervisor does not often observe the employee, such as law enforcement and sales; peers have expert knowledge of job requirements; and they bring a different perspective to the evaluation and can provide an extremely valid assessment of performance. Disadvantages: Friendships have the potential to bias ratings, although research has provided little evidence that this is a problem; and peers are uncomfortable rating themselves and others for administrative decision-making purposes.

Subordinates. Advantages: For evaluating the performance of managers, subordinates are an especially valuable source of information, as they often have the best chance to see how well a manager treats employees. Disadvantages: Subordinates may be reluctant to say negative things about the person to whom they report; when required to identify themselves, subordinates tend to give managers higher ratings; and given the power employees have in this type of evaluation, managers tend to emphasize employee satisfaction, even at the expense of productivity.

Self. Advantages: No one has a greater chance to observe the employee's behavior than the employee himself or herself; it is useful to get employees thinking about their performance before the feedback session; and areas of disagreement between the self-appraisal and other evaluations can be fruitful topics for the feedback session. Disadvantages: Individuals have a tendency to inflate assessments of their performance, especially when used for administrative decisions; people tend to blame outside circumstances for their failures while taking a large part of the credit for their successes; and self-appraisals are not appropriate for administrative decision-making.

Customers. Advantages: Services are often produced and consumed on the spot, so the customer is often the only person who directly observes the service performance and may be the best source of performance information. Using customer evaluations of employee performance is appropriate in two situations. The first is when an employee's job requires direct service to the customer or linking the customer to other services within the organization. Second, customer evaluations are appropriate when the organization is interested in gathering information to determine what products and services the customer wants. Disadvantages: Customer surveys are expensive, and as a result, many organizations limit the information gathering to short periods of once a year.