managing behavior

Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McShane/ Von Glinow 2/e

Managing Behavior Managing Behavior


Link between behavior and outcomes is not obvious

Parties involved in assessing behaviorPeers, Bosses, Subordinates, Customers, and

Technology


Behavioral Assessment methodBehavioral Assessment method

There are several methods and techniques used for evaluating / assessing employees behavior. These are classified as

A] Traditional methods1. Confidential Report – 2. Free from or essay method – 3. Straight ranking - 4. Paired comparisons – 5. Forced Distribution6. Graphic rating scale7. Checklist method8. Critical incidents9. Group appraisal10.Field review

B] Modern methods1. Assessment centre2. Human Resource

Accounting3. Behaviorally Anchored

Rating Scale4. Appraisal through MBO5. 360 Degree appraisal


A] Traditional methodsA] Traditional methods : : 1. Confidential Report1. Confidential Report

Prepared by employee’s immediate boss, covers strength and weakness, achievement and failure, personality and behavior of the employeeIt involves subjectivity as is based on impression rather than on data Its credibility is very low therefore no feedback is provided to the employee being appraisal.


2. Free from or essay method – 2. Free from or essay method –

Under this method, the evaluator writes a short essay on the employee’s performance on the basis of over all impression. The description is expected to be as factual and concrete as possible. This can provide a good deal of information about employee and evaluator can explain with the help of examples. This method suffers from several drawbacks –

1. The appraisal may be loaded with flowery language 2. The quality of appraisal depends on the writing ability

of evaluator3. It is very time consuming4. Difficult to compare two essay appraisal


3. Straight ranking - 3. Straight ranking -

Here evaluator assigns relative rank to the employees in the same work unit doing the same job. Employees are ranked from the best to the poorest on the basis of performance. The ‘whole person’ is compared with the other ‘whole person’ without analyzing performance. Employee - A B C D E Rank - 2 1 5 4 3 It is one of the oldest and simple methods, it has several weaknesses:

It involves bias and snap Judgement Difficult to rank as having varying behavior pattern it indicate only how a person stands in relation to

other in the group but not how much better or worse


4. Paired comparisons – 4. Paired comparisons –

Here each employee is compared with all the others in pairs one at a time. The number of times an employee is judged better than the others determines his rank. But, it becomes very cumbersome when the number of employees to be rated is large.


5. Forced Distribution - 5. Forced Distribution -

In this method, the rater is required to distribute his rating in the form of a normal frequency distribution as in fig. The purpose is to eliminate the rater’s bias or central tendency.The rater does not explain why an employee is placed in a particular category. Specific job related criteria is not used in rating


6. Graphic rating scale6. Graphic rating scale

It is numerical scale indicate different degree of a particular trait. The rater distributes a printed forms for each employee to be rated. The form contains several characteristics relating to the personality and performance of employees - Intelligence, quality of work, leadership skills, Judgement etc. The rater records his Judgement about employees traits on the scale. The numerical points given to an employee are added up to find out his overall performance.

Rating scale is of two types – continuous and discontinuous. In continuous scale the degree of traits are measured in number ranging from 0 to 5 where as in a discontinuous scale appropriate boxes are used.


Continuous scale

0 1 2 3 4 5

Discontinuous scale

Poor Average good ExcellentIt is easy to understand and useIt is economical to design and administer and rating scaleDrawbacks: It is arbitrary and subjective – specific job related performance criteria are not consideredIt is assumed that each trait is equally important for all jobDescriptive word are used in rating scaleIt imposes heavy burden on rater


7. Checklist method7. Checklist method

It is list of statement that describes the characteristics and performance of employees on the job. The rater checks to indicate if the behavior of an employee is positive or negative to each statement. The performance of employee is rated on the basis of number of positive checks.


8. Critical incidents8. Critical incidents

In this method the supervisor keeps a written record of critical events (good/ bad) and how different employee depends upon on his positive / negative behaviors during these events.

These critical incidents are identified after thorough study of the job and discussion with the staff e.g. a fire, a sudden breakdown of machinery, a serious accidents etc. may be identified as critical incidents for the working of a factory

This method helps to avoid vague impression and general remark as the rating is based on actual records of behavior performance. The feedback from actual events can be discussed with the employee to allow improvements.


worker Reactions Score

A Informed the supervisor immediately

5

B Became anxious of loss of out put

4

C Tried to repair the machine 3

D Complained of poor maintenance

2

E Was happy to get forced rest 1


9. Field review -9. Field review -In this method, a training officer from the personnel department interviews line supervisor to evaluate their subordinates. The supervisors prepares questionnaire in advance to be asked. By answering these questions a supervisor give his opinions about the behavior of his subordinates, the subordinates work process, his strengths and weaknesses, promotional potential etc. These are then placed in the employees personal service file. The supervisor’s personal bias is reduced due to active involvement of the personnel officer. The ratings are usually classified in to three categories- outstanding, satisfactory, and unsatisfactory. This is time consuming method and success depends upon the competence and sincerity of interviewer.


B] Modern methodsB] Modern methods

1. Assessment centre-An assessment centre is group of employee drawn from different work unites. These employees work together on an assignment similar to the one they would be handling when promoted. Evaluators observe and rank the performance of all the participants. Experienced manager with proven ability serve as evaluator.


2. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale2. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale

This method combines graphic rating scales with critical incidents method. BARS are descriptions of various degree of behavior relating to specific performance dimensions. Critical areas of job performance are determined in advance. The rater records the observable job behavior of an employee and compares these observations with BARS. In this way employee’s actual performance is judged against the desired behavior. The steps involved in constructing BARS are-

01.Identifying critical incidents: A person to be appraised, describes with specific examples of both effective and ineffective job behavior

02. Select performance dimensions:Cluster the behavior incident into a smaller set of performance dimensions

03. Retranslate the incidentsAnother group of experts assign each incident to the dimension that it best describes if there is 75% agreement with the first group


04. Assign scale to incidentsThe second group rates each incident on a seven or nine

point scale. Rating is done on the basis of how well the behavior described in the incident represents performance on the appropriate dimensions. Means and standard deviations are then calculated for the scale value assigned to each incident. Incidents that have standard deviations of 1.5 or less (on seven point scale) are included in the final anchored scale

05.Develop final instrumentA subset of the incidents that meets both the retranslation and

standard deviation criteria is used as a behavioral anchor for the final performance dimensions. A final BARS instruments typically comprises a series of vertical scale that are endorsed by the included incidents. Each incident is positioned on the scale according to its mean value


05. Appraisal through MBO05. Appraisal through MBO

This concept of management by objective MBO was developed by Peter Drucker in 1954. He called it ‘management by Objective and self control’. It is also known as “work planning and review” or “goal setting approach” to appraisal. It has been defined as “ a process whereby the superior and subordinate managers of an organization jointly identify its common goals, define each individual’s major areas of responsibility in terms of results expected of him and use these measure as guides for operating the unit and assessing the contributions of each of its members”

MBO Process:1. The main steps involved in MBO are as- 2. Set organizational goals3. Define performance targets4. Performance reviews5. feedbacks


360 Degree appraisal360 Degree appraisal

Appraisal by colleague,superior,subordinate, and friends


Errors in assessing behavior Errors in assessing behavior Halo effect - It is the tendency to rate an employee consistently high or low on the basis of overall impression. One trait of the employee influences the rater’s appraisal on all other traits.

Stereotyping – This implies forming a mental picture of a person on the basis of his age, sex, cast or religion

central tendency – it means assigning average rating to all the employees in order to avoid commitment or involvement. The ratings are clustered around the mid-point.

constant error-Some evaluators tend to be lenient while other are strict in assessing performance

personal bias – Occurs because of the rater’s likes and dislikes about an employee; religious beliefs and habits, regional, conflicts etc.

OthersSimilar-to-meRecency First Impression


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managing behavior

Self Improvement