Human Resources
Supervisor Policies and Procedures Manual

IV. Performance review and planning

Emphasis is placed on the evaluation form, rather than the goals of the evaluation process.
Evaluators fail to tell the truth so that the employee will get a bigger increase.
Evaluators fail to tell the truth because of a fear of confrontation.
Adequate time is not allowed; the review is not prepared well in advance.
Review comments are too general.
A performance award increase is not consistent with the performance review.
Negatives are avoided.
The supervisor is not familiar with the quality of the employee's work.
Tendency to forget about past problems/accomplishments and to focus instead on recent events.
The supervisor addresses performance issues for the first time in the performance review so that the employee is surprised.
The "halo effect:" the supervisor tends to rate all aspects of performance based on the observance of one trait.
The "horn effect:" supervisors tend to let one poor rating influence all other ratings, resulting in a lower overall evaluation than is really deserved.
The "central tendency effect:" tendency to rate all areas in the middle of a rating scale from fear of rating too high or too low.
"Similarity effect:" the supervisor tends to give high ratings to employees "most like me" and lower ratings to employees "not like me."

last revised: 7/1/2007

last reviewed: 2/20/2012