ABSTRACT
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines apply to any selection procedure that is used for making employment decisions, not only for hiring but also for promotion, demotion, transfer, layoff, discharge, or early retirement. Therefore, performance appraisal procedures must be validated like tests or any other selection device. Race and gender discrimination persist in job assignment, pay, promotion, and other personnel decisions. Evidence with regard to age bias shows that older workers tend to receive significantly lower ratings than do younger workers on measures of self-development, interpersonal skills, and overall job performance. For organizations to ensure compliance with fair employment practices, performance appraisals should be based on job analyses to document specific critical incidents and behaviors that are related to successful job performance. There are two broad purposes for conducting performance appraisals: administrative, for use with personnel decisions such as pay increases and promotions, and research, usually for validating selection instruments.
