Performance management of employees is a skill new supervisors must develop to earn the trust and respect of their team.
Supervisors who are new to performance management can learn from other managers’ common performance management mistakes.
The Halo Effect When Evaluating Employee Performance
When one attribute is recognized and emphasized over all other qualities, this is called the Halo Effect. When a supervisor fails to realize that they are blinded by one aspect of the employee’s performance (positive or negative), they forget to evaluate and provide feedback on other critical behavioural challenges, strengths or skill gaps. The Halo Effect is a common problem with overly friendly or overly aggressive employees. These employees exhibit extreme behaviours that can overshadow their actual work performance.
To avoid the Halo Effect, set clear performance targets to measure the employee’s performance against these targets and not the halo behaviour.
The Middle of the Road Effect During Employee Reviews
In an attempt to not rate an employee too high for fear they will not strive to improve or too low so they will feel defeated, some supervisors rate employees in the middle of the scale.
The consequence of supervisors rating all of their team in the middle of the scale is that an employee’s strengths and weaknesses are not identified, commented or coached on. It means that an improvement plan cannot be created. Employees need to understand their areas of weakness so they can work on improving them and their areas of strength to feel a sense of satisfaction. The danger of the middle of the road effect is that employees can disengage and lose respect for their manager’s ability to coach them to excellence.
To avoid the Middle of the Road Effect, supervisors should spend time listing the strengths and weaknesses of their team members outside of the performance review form or software to determine which areas should be rated high or low.
The Comparison Effect When Managing Employee Performance
Supervisors who rate employees positively because they possess similar attributes or rate them poorly because they fail to mirror their strengths or the qualities or strengths of star employees demonstrate the Comparison Effect. The Comparison Effect prevents managers from recognizing significant negative or positive differences that require feedback and coaching.
To avoid the comparison effect, measure employees against clearly defined performance targets that have been agreed to by the employee.
Overall, to avoid making the above mistakes during the performance review process, managers need to take a step back and objectively look at their team member’s performance. In addition, clearly defining performance targets and asking the employee to self evaluate their performance can also help avoid these common mistakes or biases when assessing employee performance.