The human resource department (HR department) is vital when evaluating the performance management process of an organization. The HR department ensures that employee development, employee relations, skill development and organizational goals and development are aligned with the organizations strategic plan.  According to the website Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), “A comprehensive performance management system can play a strategic role in attracting and retaining key employees. It can also help significantly improve a company’s overall business performance.” (SHRM, 2019) For this reason, it is important that the two be aligned in order to have a successful business. When the Human Resource Managers aligns the performance management process with the strategic plan of the organization, they are ensuring that they are placing personnel, enhancing training development, and implementing adequate procedures in the same direction that the organization plans to go.

When a company is doing appraisals there are three systems they can use: trait, behavioral, and results-based. These types of appraisals are used to evaluate an employee’s performance. They can also be used to help an employee improve on their weaknesses and reinforce their strengths.  Trait performance appraisal focuses on an employee’s characteristics such as dependability, helpfulness, and punctuality. An employer would then rate them by the traits exhibited. This method can result in a lot of bias decisions. Behavioral performance appraisal is based on an employee’s action rather than their traits. This method would be applicable in the service industry such as hotels.  The results-based appraisal mainly focuses on the employee’s accomplishments. It uses quantifiable records as the quantity or sales produced by the employee. This appraisal can commonly be used in for a sales job or high production organizations where the commodities is determined by the employee’s performance.

The best appraisal for the Maersk Customer Service-CARE Business Partner would be all the performance-based appraisal systems. They are all valuable when making an evaluation of an employee. Applying all three allows a company room to observe each employee’s strength and weaknesses, evaluate their habits, and evaluate their results and performance. I think if you incorporate only one appraisal, your decision can be open to bias results. I don’t think the appraisals were meant to be used separately. I believe they are meant to work as a team in order to get the best results.

An organization can use various performance rating scales like graphical, letter and numeric scales. “Graphic rating scales require an evaluator to indicate on a scale the degree to which an employee demonstrates a particular trait, behavior, or performance result” (ExploreHR.org). Graphic scale appraisal is one of the most used methods. The graphic rating scale is a “trait approach to performance rating whereby each employee is rated according to a scale of characteristics” (Snell, Morris & Bohlander, 2016). “Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS) and Behavior Observation Scale (BOS) are numerical rating scales” (Snell, Morris & Bohlander, 2016). Both of these are used to rank behavior. Numerical scales allow unbiased feedback to any evaluation that may occur. The letter scale enables you to select from a given statement and pair it with an altered statement that may be equally favorable or unfavorable. These statements usually differentiate between an effective or ineffective job performance. There are other appraisal methods such as forced distribution, behavioral anchored rating scales, and essay method. It is up to the HRM to select which appraisal method is adequate and will bring the organizations desired results.

References

ExploreHR.org. “Performance Appraisal Methods” retrieved from: http://www.explorehr.org/articles/performance_appraisal/Performance_appraisal_methods.html

SHRM. (2019). Managing Employee Performance. Retrieved from: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/managingemployeeperformance.aspx

Snell, S.A., Morris, S.S., & Boghlander, G.W. (2016). Managing Human Resources, 17^th Edition. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning